Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

We know that repairing the national finances requires us to address the two problems of debt and public pay. I commend the Ministers for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform on showing no lack of effort in that regard. There remains, however, the problem of ensuring efficiency in public expenditure.

Last week, the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, Mr. Robert Watt, told the Committee of Public Accounts that ¤30 million has been wasted on stalled transport projects in the Dublin area and the entire expenditure on projects that have never been discussed here or subjected to independent cost benefit analysis is ¤227.8 million.

We need to have proper appraisals of capital projects, not prepared by the promoters but published independently at least a year beforehand and debated in Parliament. I ask the Leader to invite the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, to the House to lay down criteria to prevent a recurrence of hundreds of millions of euro being wasted on projects with which we are not going to proceed.