Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)

I commend Deputy McGuinness on bringing forward this Bill. It makes sense and Sinn Féin will support it. Having read the Bill and having listened to the opening speech of Deputy McGuinness, I see no reason anybody in the House would disagree with the sentiments behind it. I hope the Government will support it, but I doubt it will.

The Bill takes a common sense approach to the issue. I served 11 years on Cork City Council and am aware of the current position within local authorities. I am sure many of the Deputies in this House have similar experience on local authorities and know how they operate. Currently, the way the system works is that the local government auditor will do a report, which, when produced, is given to each member of the local authority. This seems to suggest that it is then up to each member of the local authority to scrutinise that report. As Deputy McGuinness has said, many of us are not accountants or experts in that area. Therefore, it makes sense that the spending of public moneys is scrutinised by the Oireachtas and no committee is better qualified to do this than the Committee of Public Accounts. It is unfortunate if any policy disallows or prevents this from happening. We must give the public confidence in the systems, particularly in these harsh economic times when every penny counts. We, as Members of the Oireachtas, have a responsibility to ensure that the hard earned money of taxpayers is accounted for and spent appropriately and it is for that reason that Sinn Féin will support this Bill.

Based on my experience on Cork City Council, I know that up to a number of years ago the council did not even have a finance committee. When policy committees were introduced, there was no policy committee to deal with finance. The only opportunity councillors had to question the managers or the various directors of services on how money was being spent was when the budgets were being formulated in December. Cork City Council had 31 elected councillors, yet it fell to the chairpersons of the various strategic policy committees, SPCs, to do the background work on formulating the budgets and these were then almost "presented" to the rest of the council as a fait accompli . There was very little scope to question where the money was being spent or whether we were getting value for money and little or no opportunity to transfer money between budgets. Much of the money allocated in local authority budgets was for wages and payroll, with little or no discretionary spending. This process was frustrating for many councillors.

The current system does not work. It does not allow local authority members the expertise or ability to scrutinise local government audits properly. Therefore, it makes sense that the Comptroller and Auditor General should take over that responsibility because that would make the councils accountable to the public. They would come before the Committee of Public Accounts and give their reports. This would give Members from the various political backgrounds and parties the opportunity to question their spending. Accountability is particularly important in these tough economic times. When the Government came into office, it made a big play of its intention to reform our systems and local government and make them more accountable. This Bill will enhance that and I hope it is supported by the Government. If it is not supported, the Government must give a damn good reason as to why not and must explain how it will make local authorities more accountable for the spending of public moneys.

People are frustrated by the lack of accountability with regard to local government funding. Cork has probably the highest paid mayor in Europe, earning in excess of €117,000 - more than a Deputy or Senator - but he has very little power. Significant money is also spent on conferences and councillors' expenses, but there is little scrutiny of that spending. This is frustrating, especially when budgets are being cut for housing maintenance, road resurfacing, parks, recreational facilities and libraries. At the same time, people see city managers and senior officials walk away with huge severance packages and bonuses. This is no longer acceptable and must change. Sinn Féin has raised the issue here of cutting severance packages to outgoing city and county managers and at the time, the Minister, Deputy Howlin, said that it was one of his goals to try and get rid of that culture. However, we have not yet seen any legislation brought before the House to address this issue. That needs to be done.

It is important that we return confidence to the public with regard to how we spend taxpayers' money. This Bill does that and for that reason Sinn Féin will support it.

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