Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for being here. We have been around the houses on this issue for a long time. The real issue is the economic competence of the Government. It is obvious from what has happened in regard to the national broadband plan that it cannot manage big projects. The Minister, Deputy Harris, cannot stand over this overspend. In fairness, I do not expect him to do so because it massive.

I want to focus on how large projects are being managed. To be fair to the Minister, this goes beyond him. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is the real focus of my attention in this regard. How it allowed this to happen is beyond me. That an official of that Department, who is a member of National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, has obligations as a civil servant on that board and has an office close to the offices of the Secretary General and the Minister, did not at any time in over two years, during all the management advisory committee, MAC, meetings or in the context of the work that he does, mention that there was an issue in regard to the children's hospital is, frankly, beyond me. We learned recently that when this became an issue, he was called to attend a meeting in regard to the children's hospital, yet when we put questions to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in regard to this official, he responded that it was not part of his role and that he was on the board in an independent capacity. If he was there in an independent capacity, why was he called to a meeting when this issue came to a head?

He was either there in an independent capacity, or he was not. If he was there, but he was not called to any meetings, he did not participate and he did not tell anyone in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform before this became a massive political issue, why was he called to a meeting afterwards? The Minister, Deputy Harris, might ask his colleague, the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, to explain. Even though he was separate from all of this, he was called to a meeting after it became a public issue. He had no role, yet he now had a role. That does not make sense to me.

As far as I am concerned, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is dysfunctional. Having served previously as a Minister, I know that officials in the Department would argue over €5. The Ministers were in Cabinet at the time so they know what went on. The idea that officials from the Department would not have asked questions is beyond comprehension. I ask the Minister, Deputy Harris, to publish a chronology of the Department of Health's timelines on the decisions on this project. It would be very helpful if a chronology of the decisions that were made in the Department of Health were to be published because it would tell people what happened here. We also need a chronology in respect of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

My concerns are elevated by the fact that this Government, which likes to talk about economic competence, set up three boards. To be fair, they were two boards and a committee. Really, they were three boards. I am not focusing on the Minister when I ask why the Government set up three layers to oversee a project it had no concerns about. Obviously, the Government had concerns about it. Why would it have established a steering committee and another board on top of it unless it had concerns? How in the name of God can it be the case that the most senior procurement officer in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform knew nothing about this, or did not tell anyone about it? It is beyond comprehension that nobody in any of the three layers said anything about what was happening. Frankly, it is not believable. That is a very big thing to say in this Chamber. It is not credible that nobody in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform was aware.

I want to be fair to the Minister, Deputy Harris, because my focus here is on the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. How did the Department fail to answer the emails sent by the Minister and his officials in which they asked questions about this? Can the Minister tell the House why those emails were not answered for months? Is it acceptable, fair or appropriate that one Department can send an email to another Department about the biggest capital project in the history of the State, only to be told that it will be dealt with after the budget or after three months? How it that credible? It was not credible in my time in government, so how is it credible in the Minister's time in government? I ask him to answer those questions.

I remember asking questions at the Joint Committee on Health or the Committee of Public Accounts - I do not know where the questions were asked because I ask so many questions - about how this project got so far. The fourth or fifth recommendation in the report is that there should be a challenging authority. Is that not called the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform? How can a report say that there should be a challenging authority when the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is looking at this? Is the Department not the challenging authority? This is an absolute joke. Any of the Deputies in this Chamber could have come together to write 90% of this report in five minutes. We all know what happened here. There was not enough oversight and not enough conditions were put on things. How can the Government stand over a report which says that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform did not do its job? That is what it is saying. This failure happened because there was no challenging authority in government. It can be seen from this project and the broadband project, which are the two largest projects in the State at the moment, that the Department is dysfunctional. Both projects have been dealt with in an absolutely reckless manner. We cannot go on like this.

I want to ask about how the officials in the Department of Health dealt with this matter. Obviously, they had serious concerns. To be fair, they raised them earlier than the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has acknowledged. On what date did they bring those concerns to the Minister for Health? He has told us the official dates, but surely there must have been some commentary about this project behind the scenes. If there was no such commentary, that is a sign of dysfunctionality in the Department of Health. There were concerns about this project months before the date that has been mentioned by the Minister. To be fair to him, those concerns may not have manifested themselves all the way up the line. On what date did officials in the Department begin to have concerns about this project? Why did those concerns not come up the line? They took an awful long time to come up the line. The Minister should be concerned about this aspect of his Department's handling of the matter.

I will conclude by reiterating the real issues that exist in this regard. The dysfunctionality in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is beyond belief and is unacceptable to a massive degree. There are serious issues in the Department of Health. If it were not the case that real concern about this issue had existed for a long time, three boards or layers - for want of a better phrase - would not have been created. Why did this not come to the Minister's attention at an earlier stage? How in God's name was the communication between the Department of Health and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform not better? It does not make sense. Any time there is a major project like this, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform should be all over it. The idea that it was not all over this project is not credible. The idea that the State chief procurement officer, who was sitting on the board, did not ask questions about this matter within the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is not credible.

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