Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 86: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the system in place for pinning responsibility on a named public official for the delivery of public investment projects. [17336/07]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I announced a comprehensive package of measures in October 2005 to achieve better Value for Money on major capital and ICT projects. As one element of these measures, which are codified in a Department of Finance letter on Value-for-Money of January 2006, each Department and Sponsoring Agency must appoint an individual as Project Manager for each capital project at the planning/procurement stage. The project manager should be a senior official, including at Management Committee or Board level where appropriate. It is a matter for each project-implementing Department or agency to determine who should be appointed project manager in each individual case having regard to the scale, complexity and cost of each project.

The Project Manager is assigned personal responsibility for monitoring progress on projects against contract requirements and for reporting progress and issues arising to the Project Board. For major capital projects i.e. projects costing more than €30 million, the project manager must also on a quarterly basis submit a progress report to the Department's Management Advisory Committee (MAC) or the Agency's Board, as appropriate, and then to the relevant Minister. If adverse developments occur such as potential cost overruns or delays, the project manager's progress report should include recommendations to address the situation, including if warranted the option of project termination.

Furthermore, under the conditions of sanction for capital expenditure issued by my Department, all Departments are required to implement a system of spot checks of projects to ensure compliance with VFM requirements and to report the findings of such spot checks annually to my Department. The spot checks enable compliance with the requirement to have an individual project manager in place to be checked.

In terms of accountability, the arrangements accordingly provide for personal responsibility within the overall management framework of the Department or Implementing Agency as regards the planning, management and execution of projects. It is a matter for each Department's Management processes to address issues of individual performance as appropriate taking account of these and other issues.