Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 16 December 2021

Public Accounts Committee

2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 38 - Health

9:30 am

Mr. Robert Watt:

Yes. If the Committee of Public Accounts is willing to take the responsibility arising out of something being put into the public domain that would undermine our ability to defend the State's interests and finish this contract in the most efficient way and if that is the view of the committee, the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Government, I will do what I am told but it is my professional view and my very clear advice, which people can dismiss if they wish, that publishing commercially sensitive information at this stage in a contract that is subject to dispute would be very damaging for the State's interests. People can take a different view. Ultimately, if I am instructed to send this report against the advice I have received, I will do it so it is not a question of my refusing to do so. If yourself and-----