Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome the opportunity to discuss the Bill and thank Deputy Shanahan and the Regional Group for bringing it the House. It deals with transparency and how public money is used, what funding is distributed for capital projects and how that funding is used. It includes a requirement that each Minister will report annually on large capital expenditure in his or her Department five years after the expenditure has occurred.

There is an onus on the House to ensure that public money is spent wisely and, if distributed, is spent in accordance with its initial purpose and that it is accounted for. This is particularly relevant considering that initial budgets tend to escalate over time. This leads to overruns that can put pressure on public finances which can also result in imposing cuts in other spending areas becoming necessary. There are many infrastructural projects such as the N24 in my own county that no one wants to see fall because of issues in other spending areas such as the children’s hospital. Yet communities will always remain worried about the impact of cost overruns that may scupper plans for projects that are of such importance to those communities.

As we have seen recently, bad planning can result in projects going wrong. In these cases oversight, accountability and cost controls will have limited effect particularly if the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform does not take more responsibility in the planning phases, as the IMF and IFAC have suggested in the past.

The Bill refers to the 2016 OECD review of budget oversight by the Irish Parliament. It has been noted that some studies place Ireland lowest among OECD countries for effective parliamentary engagement in budgeting and recommended enhanced information to support parliamentary engagement. This cannot be overlooked. On the contrary, it is something that must be attended to and I welcome any attempt to do so.

In particular, the OECD report noted that our budget oversight is underdeveloped by international standards. It notes a fractured approach to budgetary approval. This is an analysis that led some stakeholders to question whether the budget scrutiny of the Houses of the Oireachtas and its committees are meaningful or impactful. As the introduction to the Bill pointed out, the simple act of seeing where the money goes will improve the quality of our debate on how to spend public money. Faith in the work of the Oireachtas should be predicated on the transparency we provide on taxpayers' money and where it goes. This is a concern to everyone both inside and outside of this House. Bearing that in mind, the Bill seeks to address one important factor, namely reporting back, rather than the focus on Members being issued with material on what is going out. We need to have more oversight from and more engagement with the Department on the planning of projects because, ultimately, we are all put here to represent the people who elect us and to ensure that, so far as possible, we can provide an account of the work this House does and how it spends people’s hard-earned tax money.

We only need to look at the significant overruns in the Dublin Port Tunnel which was 160% of its original budget. The Luas line’s first construction phase resulted in a 289% overrun in budgeted costs. Then, of course, there is the national children’s hospital, which is a consistent source of concern, which is running at an over run of 135%.

While we will support this Bill, we should note that the gap between approval and reporting may still persist. This is something I look forward to seeing addressed and analysed on Committee Stage. All avenues must be pursued when it comes to ensuring the proper spending of public money. I thank the Deputy again for bringing the Bill before the House.

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