Mr. Ronnie Downes:

We in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform have an ongoing relationship with each of the line Departments. This is usually conducted through what we call our Vote sections. For example, there is a section for the health Vote which deals with our colleagues in the Department of Health and an agriculture Vote section for the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Part of the role of these sections is to engage in discussion and dialogue with counterparts in the line Departments to monitor the degree to which the Estimates allocation, the voted allocation, is being drawn down and spent on the capital investment and services for which the moneys were allocated. We cannot micromanage each particular area. In the first instance, it is the responsibility of each Department to make sure that the money is used effectively for the purposes for which it was allocated. The head of each Department is the Accounting Officer. That person has to give an account of how the money is used to the Dáil. There is a whole process which involves the Comptroller and Auditor General, the sectoral committees and the Committee of Public Accounts.