Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The important principle is that the contracting authorities are responsible for their own budgets and responses. The Accounting Officer in each case is responsible for monitoring its own expenditure. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform does not operate as a monitoring agency at a micro-management level to make sure that each contracting authority operates within its own budget. Each has a set budget on which there are ceilings and they have to operate within them. However, they are delegated the power to spend the money that has been allocated. Overall, this has been a successful and practical implementation of public procurement and has resulted in projects that would otherwise have been cancelled and would not have been completed within budget.

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