Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

I have a lot of sympathy with the point Senator Quinn has raised. I have seen local authority accounts covering two or three years being audited together, which is appalling for many reasons. I am sure the Minister of State is also aware of this. I have seen bad practices slip in whereby executives and councillors were unaware of accumulated losses because they were receiving historic information. No business can function on that basis today. Where we require the private sector to meet statutory deadlines, generally speaking, there is no compelling reason the State sector should not have the same discipline and be as efficient. We should seek to inject that practice into the public service system. In the absence of such practices, costs will not be properly controlled and the necessary information will not be available to run bodies in a businesslike way and to put in place remedies at the appropriate times. The date proposed by the Senator may well be too narrow, but deadlines should be set to which people must conform. If the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff are not in a position to meet such deadlines, there is no reason local authorities and other bodies cannot be audited by private sector auditors who have their own code of practice, disciplines and responsibilities. They subsequently may be in a position to report to the Comptroller and Auditor General and the latter's office can refer to the issues involved. It is a matter for the Department of Finance, but it should be examined. With reduced income levels in the coming years, we will have to focus on cost overruns, efficiencies and effectiveness within the system. I make those points in support of the general principle put forward by Senator Quinn.