John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I can provide an example. The Department of Health is the most obvious one. Horse Sport Ireland is being examined by a committee in this House today in terms of how it spends its money as an agency of a Department being operated by the State. You can go down through the rest of the Departments. All you have to do is to look at the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General every year. There is a disgraceful loss of money to the State because of inefficiency and the fact that a Department - not to name any one in particular - has simply not spent its money in a prudent way and in a way that would give the taxpayer value for money. To be quite honest, I do not see the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform doing anything that would convince me that it is on top of its game in relation to keeping a control on each Department relevant to the spend and what has been set out here. It is down to the Accounting Officer and associated agencies to ensure compliance, manage capital budgets overall and manage budgets at individual project level. There are too many examples of failure. I do not see any sanction provided for in the circular. I do not see any provision for the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform to intervene. It is like a sheriff with no sidearm.