Ivor Callely (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)
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Question 253: To ask the Minister for Finance the measures which will be put in place to ensure that there is more effective allocation of resources by the Government, Ministers, Departments and agencies to result in better value for the taxpayer and greater accountability to the Houses of the Oireachtas and Irish people in regard to public expenditure. [19144/06]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Government has taken a number of important initiatives in recent years to put a framework in place to achieve better value for money from public expenditure and to provide greater accountability to the Oireachtas and the taxpayer on what is being achieved for public expenditure. These include: the 5 year rolling multi-annual capital envelopes for public capital investment introduced in Budget 2004; new guidelines for the appraisal and management of capital expenditure in February 2005; proposed reforms to public procurement and the introduction of public private partnerships to procure suitable projects; value for money measures on procurement, ICT projects and consultancies in October 2005 which include provision for fixed priced contracts as the norm, full cost benefit analysis of capital projects over €30 million, audit of these major capital projects, the appointment of an individual as project manager for major capital and ICT projects and peer review of major ICT projects; and the Government's plans for reform of the Estimates and Budgetary process which I announced in Budget 2006. From 2007, Ministers will be submitting an annual output statement in tandem with their Estimates to facilitate Dáil consideration of the Estimates.

In addition to the above, I am planning improvements to the operation of the expenditure review initiative which will see a further element of the new robust framework for better public expenditure management and enhanced value for money put in place.