Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 20 October 2022

Public Accounts Committee

2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 3 - Vote Accounting and Budget Management
Chapter 4 - Reallocation of Voted Funding

9:30 am

Photo of James O'ConnorJames O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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I want to broaden the point that I am trying to make and I will try to get Mr. Moloney's reaction to that. Investors from abroad look at Ireland at the moment and they express concern about the pace at which we can develop our infrastructure. The NDP is under the auspices of the Department. I cannot see how those projects are going to be developed within a respectable timeframe, as has been demonstrated with projects such as metro north and past projects that have either been shelved or cancelled as a consequence of bureaucracy and red tape. I want to get an insight into how the Department intends to get those projects done, particularly given what happened with the Galway ring road, where, effectively, an independent State agency, electable by or accountable to pretty much no one, which has been proven to be the case, is able to go in and strip Government-backed decisions that have been made to build road infrastructure.