Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

Like all other Deputies, I welcome the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. These reports are very important because misuse of public moneys undermines public confidence in Government, in the public sector and in the tax system. However, for these reports to be of real value, those responsible for the financial misuse and irregularities highlighted need to be held accountable and the findings need to prompt changes in order to achieve best practice and value for money in public spending.

This latest report highlights a number of very serious cases of questionable financial management. I welcome in particular the light it sheds on the Thornton Hall fiasco. As my colleague, party spokesperson on justice, Deputy Ó Snodaigh, pointed out, the section of the report on the purchase of the site for the proposed super prison at Thornton Hall is a vindication of my party's position. The report is damning regarding the purchase of this site.

The report found that the price paid for the site at Thornton Hall is likely to have been at least twice the market price at the time for well positioned agricultural land with development potential in the target area. The Comptroller and Auditor General describes the State's negotiating position as weak. He concludes that there was no real competition to obtain the lowest possible price and that the procurement process "did not position the State to acquire the land at the lowest cost economically achievable." The report further states:

The committee did not record the basis on which scores were awarded to individual sites under the various criteria. The marks awarded by the site selection committee appear to be inconsistent.

The report also found that the manner in which the Office of Public Works contracted with CBRE for the provision of professional services for the site selection and procurement did not comply with the rules for procurement of professional services in a number of respects. Deputy Ó Snodaigh yesterday challenged the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform in this House regarding the inconsistencies between the Minister's assertion that the purchase of the Thornton Hall prison site for €199,000 per acre was good value and that of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report which concludes very clearly that it was not.

The Minister has not satisfactorily accounted for this blatant wastage of public money. As I previously stated this evening, the Comptroller and Auditor General's report is only of value if those responsible, the Minister, Deputy McDowell, in this case, are made to account for the financial mismanagement in question.

The report also examined a number of issues related to the Department of Health and Children. The Comptroller and Auditor General found that the discretionary medical card scheme is not operated in a uniform way across the health service. The Comptroller and Auditor General raised concerns that payments continue to be made to doctors on the basis of the 75,000 estimate, which now appears to be too high. An examination of the nursing home subvention scheme found huge discrepancies in how subventions are given in different HSE regions. Once again these issues highlight inequities at the heart of the health system.

I urge the Comptroller and Auditor General to undertake a more comprehensive review of public private partnerships in all Departments. In 2004, the Comptroller and Auditor General published a value for money report into the use of public private partnerships for the construction of a number of schools, and the maintenance and running of the school buildings over a 25-year contract period. That report raised concerns regarding the ultimate cost of those PPPs to the State and suggested the costs and benefits of adopting the PPP approach should be assessed relative to the performance of a comparable group of schools procured conventionally. There is a need now before the Government takes us any further down the PPP road to carry out a thorough evaluation of the true cost to the State and, therefore, the taxpayer of the range of PPPs embarked upon to date. From the experience in other states there is every reason to suspect that PPPs will prove to have been the biggest misuse and waste of public money ever. I look forward to the Comptroller and Auditor General undertaking that further review.

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