Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

I congratulate Deputy Phil Hogan for bringing forward the Bill, which is opportune, timely and necessary. It is necessary for a number of reasons, but not because the development of Docklands was wrong. However, the development of the docklands has been very positive. It is very important that, in association with all such positive development, we would have a situation that is clearly transparent and in which accountability is clear to all, and this should also include accountability to this House. Unfortunately, that has not been the case.

The central purpose of the Bill is that the Committee of Public Accounts would assume the role it normally has in such situations, assert itself and bring the Comptroller and Auditor General's report through the committee. As a former member of that committee, I assure the House this is a sure-fire way to ensure that everything is above aboard and seen to be so.

I am appalled at the Augustinian attitude of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. St. Augustine said, "Lord, make me pure, but not yet". I cannot understand why the Minister told the House yesterday that this was a great Bill which contained positive elements, but that, at the same time, it was not the right time for it. There is no better time than the present. This is what has left this country the way it is at present. It is up to its neck in debt because nobody had the guts to stand up and say that now is the time to do something about it, to interfere and to introduce accountability and transparency. That is what the problem of this country has always been.

Unfortunately, when the Committee of Public Accounts set out to examine any such situation, it is after the event. Why is this? It is because Ministers do not want to account to this House for expenditure within their respective Departments. It is intolerable that any Government or Minister in any capacity at any time would approve of a programme of development anywhere that would involve public expenditure for which that Minister was not accountable to the House on a daily basis. Multiply the daily expenditure in any Department and one will get the totality of expenditure for a year. If any company, body or group of agencies gets it into its head that it does not have to account for day-to-day expenditure, the culmination of which is a massive budget, then all is lost before we begin.

Rhett Butler once said to Scarlet O'Hara, when she was commenting negatively about one his unpatriotic investments, of which he had many, that there are two occasions when one can make money in a country: one is when the country is making up, the other is when it is breaking up. I do not know if this country is breaking up. However, I know that many people have seen opportunities that are not necessarily above board. This does not just apply to the Dublin Docklands Development Authority but to many other areas of expenditure as well.

I hope the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the various speakers on the Government side who have recognised the merit of the Bill put forward by Deputy Phil Hogan will vote in support of it and show they are in favour of honesty, integrity and positive development in this country and, most of all, accountability.

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