Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

The Comptroller and Auditor General's remit should be extended beyond reporting on past failures to improve corporate governance by preventing their repetition. That was my suggestion. Does the Minister agree that if key performance indicators are not published by Ministers with the Estimates, the Dáil cannot effectively hold them to account? For example, an allocation of €46 billion is announced but it is impossible to get a handle on what it will deliver. Does the Minister agree the phoney secrecy surrounding the budget and the belief that the Minister must wait for the last bit of data has resulted in bad decisions being made in the past without scrutiny such as those relating to medical cards for the over 70s and decentralisation? Proper scrutiny or evaluation of these proposals was not conducted. Does the Minister concur, therefore, that we need to open the system to proper accountability mechanisms, which go well beyond what he has indicated to date? We must have performance indicators and more detail. We must see them earlier and real evaluative work must be done, thereby learning the lessons of the past.

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