Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I agree completely with the point made about conflict of interest. It is not only the fact that there was a double payment, but also the fact that that information was relied on to make a decision. Anyone making a decision will want expert advice in order to ground that decision. If that expert advice is in conflict it causes a corruption of the process, as I see it. It is really important that we get the correct people before the committee, namely, those from the HSE who made the decision. We have been told about Chinese walls. I am fairly sick of hearing that being offered as an excuse for why the same companies can be relied upon. We have to know whether it was the same arm of this company that carried out both pieces of work. I suspect that it was, because a body of work had already been carried out.

It strikes me that there should be some procurement rules, and if there are none we have to look for gaps in the commissioning of work. It is not just a box to be ticked. Corporate culture will help to avoid those kinds of conflicts. We have to find out whether there are procurement rules involved and how they consider it and manage it. We need to hear that from the HSE. We have to have the correct people here to discuss this matter, because this is of enormous importance. Only this morning there was a news item concerning the over-dominance of the four big accountancy companies in the UK. It is exactly the same here. There is also a question, wider than the remit of the Committee on Public Accounts but which might find its way into a report at some point, around whether we design rules which do not allow other entities into that space. I suspect that we make it much more difficult for middle-ranking firms to compete, and we need to look at that, because it could have a bearing on value for money.