Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

That was a long way of saying the Government does not plan to carry out a full review of every single contract. A full review is required. As the Minister of State rightly said, the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report deals only with a sample of contracts. From this, it has found that pre-contract due diligence records were significantly incomplete. In more than a third of the cases examined, invoice rates were not clear and could not be verified as signed contracts were not available. There was clear evidence of substantial overcharging in some instances, and the pre-payment checklist used by IPAS did not include a check to verify the correct capacity or occupancy.

The Minister of State cannot simply argue we will be doing what is required in the future and that we were under pressure in the past. This is about a substantial amount of public money, taxpayers’ money. It has enriched a very small number of individuals and companies to the tune of millions of euro and in the process caused tension and anger across communities. As a result of the damning findings in the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report, is anybody going to be held accountable? The only way somebody can be held accountable is if every single contract is examined for flaws. Without that, the public can have no confidence that there will be any transparency.

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