Dáil debates

Tuesday, 14 December 2021

Appropriation Bill 2021: Second Stage

 

6:50 pm

Photo of Aengus Ó SnodaighAengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Cheann Comhairle agus déanfaidh mé iarracht cloí leis an méid atá sa Bhille agus tá an ceart ag na Teachtaí a tháinig romham. I ndeireadh thiar thall níl i gceist anseo ach glanadh suas ag deireadh na bliana, ag déanamh cinnte de go bhfuil na cuntais in ord agus go bhfuil an t-airgead ar a raibh vóta caite ina leith caite agus go bhfuil cuntasaíocht cheart déanta faoi.

Ar an gceist sin táim chun díriú isteach ar an méid a bhí sa doiciméad a d’fhoilsigh an Rialtas anuraidh, Budget 2021: Expenditure Report 2021. Tagann sé seo amach gach uile bhliain ach gach uile bhliain ardaím an cheist chéanna mar tá píosaí ann, nach ann dóibh. Nuair a lorgaítear eolas, ní thagaim ar an eolas sin. Nuair a chuirim ceist sa Dáil bíonn sí curtha as eagar.

This is an old chestnut of mine. Since 2011, Vote 15 has fallen under the remit of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. Deputy Michael McGrath is the Minister in charge. The Expenditure Report 2022 refers to the “Head under which this Vote will be accounted for by the Office of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform”, yet I cannot get any answer at all. It is not a huge sum, at €2 million, but it still has to be accounted for, like every cent and euro the State spends. I do not know whether the full sum was spent this year but I do know an Supplementary Estimate was not applied for, so we can assume it was not spent and that we might find out at some stage whether there is anything left over from that €2 million.

Vote 15, for those who are not aware, is the Vote for the secret service, which, I am told every year does not exist, yet there is no hint of that in this document. In chapter 16, the Minister's Department explains all its other Votes. Votes 11 to 14, inclusive, 17, 18, 39 and 43 are all described and there are little graphs and so on to help us make head or tail of them and to account for the spending. For Vote 15, however, that explanation disappears.

If we dig a little further and go to page 189 in the document, all of a sudden it appears: Vote 15 - Secret Service amounts to €2 million, under the title “Summary of Supply Services”. That is for capital and current expenditure. Two pages later, the summary of voted capital is stated as zero; it does not exist. On the next page, it states that expenditure on pay and pensions does not exist. In that case, what the hell is the service and who supplies it? It is not for pay or pensions and we know it is not for capital expenditure. We know it is not supplied by An Garda Síochána, the Defence Forces, Revenue, the Department of Social Protection, or even the OPW or the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, OGCIO, which most people might not be aware of. It might be appropriate under that heading but we do not know because we know nothing about it. Each of those bodies has its own budget line and Vote, so we know it has nothing to do with them.

Maybe, like many other public services, it is contracted out. Perhaps we have subcontractors out there and perhaps bogus self-employment exists in this case. Maybe, God forbid, it is a foreign company or foreign agency, with a foreign secret service carrying out a function about which the only gem of information I have, other than the magical number I mentioned and the fact it comes under the Minister's Department, is information I got in 2009 from the then Government Chief Whip who stated the purpose of the secret service Vote was "to obtain information which is necessary for the security for the country".

The Minister, therefore, is the M of the Irish secret service. I do not think he is the C - C the head of MI6 in the UK, who is Richard Moore, not Roger Moore - or at least I hope he is not. Maybe he is; it is all secret. I do not see why we cannot be honest and say what it is. I have not been able to have that confirmed by any Minister since 2009. All the questions I table are ruled out of order because the Minister has no responsibility to the Dáil on the matter, yet his own document, the expenditure report, states he is accountable to the Dáil on this matter. When we ask a question, all we get is a response stating the figure was €2 million last year. In fact, when I received that information, in 2009, the figure was €200,000. There has been a tenfold increase, therefore, since 2009. What the hell is this secret service for and what information are we paying for? What hush-hush, top-secret information have we got?

The Minister should end this merry dance we have every year and stick it into the Vote for the Departments of Justice, Foreign Affairs or Defence, or An Garda Síochána. I do not really care, but it should fit somewhere in order that some Minister can stand up and say he or she can genuinely account for the money having been properly spent on information that was useful, if that is what it is for, or on informants, data or whatever. If it is for data, it obviously did not work this year, given the cyberattack on the country. We did not have that information, although I hope this was one of the ways we got the information to rescue our computers.

This is the end of the year and we are supposed to account for money having been properly spent. It relates to last year's budget and this year's funding. It will be the same again next year unless this Vote is shifted. It was not always under the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

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