David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for the response. The problem is that while the theory of commercial sensitivity is to strike a balance between the public's need to know and private commercial objectives, it is not always achieved in practice. In fact, we do not have that balance. An example in the Minister's area, on which I have been doing some work in the Committee on Budget Scrutiny and the Committee of Public Accounts, concerns public private partnerships. Under the public spending code issued by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, it is the responsibility of the project sponsor to ensure post-project reviews take place. Very often, they do not. When they do, we cannot get access to them. They are not made public because we are told there are commercial sensitivities. In reality, that is not good practice because we need to be able to evaluate properly whether there was good value for money and whether the taxpayer got good value for money. The problem is that, at times, commercial sensitivity is actually used as a cloak or excuse to prevent proper scrutiny and the development of policy.

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