Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Minister mentioned that she announced the rural development schemes a few days ago, with a budget of €5 million. CLÁR has not been announced yet. We will reach that shortly. The amount there is €7.5 million. The Minister has probably sent out a circular to all sections in the Department from the finance officer stating that all bills for payment must be in by 12 or 15 December or there cannot be a guarantee of processing and so forth before 31 December. Today is 1 December so that is a fortnight from today, and that is being very generous because the Minister probably sent out a circular a few weeks ago stating that they all had to be in by 5 December, if I know anything about what happens in Departments. It appears awfully strange that the Department will be able to announce, get the work done, spend and validate €7.5 million worth of CLÁR money between now and then, and that it will be able to get the work done and validation, clearance and payment carried out on the rural development schemes. Otherwise, it appears the Minister is paying money on account to the county councils for work that perhaps has been approved in some cases and for other work that has not been approved, and that they have extraordinary permission from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to act as a type of bank. That practice was frowned on a number of years ago by the Comptroller and Auditor General. He wrote a report ten years ago stating that the Department cannot hand the money over to local authorities without the work being done, which is what happened in the old days. The Minister of State, Deputy Ring, will recall from his time on the local authority that the authority used to get the money before the end of the year and spend it again. However, the Comptroller and Auditor General wrote a scathing report on that and said it could no longer happen, so the practice stopped. The Minister appears to be saying that it has started again. Did the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform consult with the Comptroller and Auditor General before shovelling out the money before the end of the year, allowing the local authorities to become a quasi deposit bank and letting them spend it again in their own time when the Minister has lost all control? The Minister might clarify those matters because they are very serious control issues in a Department.