Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I appreciate that. The next thing I want to move on to is something I have been pursuing over the last few months across all Departments around public procurement. Essentially, I have been trying to establish whether every single Ministry can tell me right now how many contracts they have and are they on, under or over budget. Unfortunately, the Department of housing was not able to answer the three questions I put on these. I will be asking for the same report I would have got from other Departments from the Department of housing. Essentially, the answer I got was that the information sought was not readily available and its compilation would involve a disproportionate amount of time and work. I got the same answer on three separate parliamentary questions raised to the Ministry. I understand it is a very complex task and it might take a lot of time but the problem is if the Department is not able to tell us how many contracts it has and how much money is in them, then I definitely do not know. Therefore, it is vital that all Departments and Ministries are able to say how many contracts they have and how many are on, under, or over tender. This is not an exercise to say the Department is over budget on a few things. Of course the Department is over budget on a few things. We all know that but the key is if it is being tracked.