Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Reviewing spends on projects such as the Mater Hospital, the Dunkettle Roundabout, the Cork and Dublin runways, the National Children's Hospital, it is clear how important it is to have a Minister to shepherd a project through our cumbersome public spending code. It appears to me that many fine and needed projects that lack ministerial political patronage are left strangled by toxic departmental processes. Fast-track projects suggest Ministers have a VIP lane through the spending code while others are left sitting on the hard shoulder. Large sums earmarked in the budgetary process are never heard of again in this House. The Dáil is never supplied with a list of approved and completed projects. The website, www.whereyourmoneygoes.gov.ie, with all its multicoloured glory, can only break down to the nearest billion while parliamentary questions on capital spending only obfuscate rather than illuminate. Does the Minister feel, as I do, that there is a democratic deficit in this House in how we approve capital spending? In the upcoming budget, can he provide more granular detail even if just historical detail on completed projects so that we can see specifically where our money goes?

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