I welcome Deputies Hayes and Deasy to the committee and wish them well during their time on the committee. The first business is the election of a Chairman. I pay tribute to the work of Deputy Perry as Chairman and I wish him well.
Election of Chairman.
Clerk to the Committee
I propose Deputy Noonan.
I second that proposal.
Clerk to the Committee
As there are no other nominations, I declare Deputy Noonan elected and I ask him to take the Chair.
Deputy Noonan took the Chair.
I thank members for electing me as their Chairman. I thank my proposer and seconder. I also pay tribute to my predecessor, Deputy Perry, who was an effective, impartial Chairman. I hope to follow his approach to the work of the committee. I acknowledge the Comptroller and Auditor General's ten years in office this week. He has been an effective Comptroller and Auditor General and all members will join me in thanking him for the work he has done in the public interest over the past ten years. I hope he will be with us for another decade. Public servants spend longer in office than politicians. We would regard ten years in high office as a significantly lengthy period. I would like Mr. Purcell to go on for a long time.
I welcome Deputy Noonan's appointment as Chairman of the committee and I wish him well. Given that Mr. Purcell has completed a decade in office, it might be no harm to institute a process to look back over the work of the committee in recent years. According to the reports he issues, we are dealing with a staggering amount that has been overspent or misspent. I hope the committee will find a way in future of not only exposing the cases highlighted in these reports but will address the issues raised in them by taking action against the Department or officials concerned so that the same problems do not arise again. The public will no longer accept us uncovering such inefficiencies and the lack of value for money and will expect us to take action. I would also like that to be publicised.
I congratulate the Chairman and wish him well in his new position. I pay tribute to Deputy Perry, the former Chairman. To his credit, he initiated a process which I hope will be continued, to address the issuing of reports by the committee. There is a backlog and his ultimate aim was to get to the stage where the committee would report on an interim basis, for example, at the conclusion of each Dáil session in order that the reports would be current. The reporting system we have embarked upon does not only involve reporting the incidents that have occurred as specific recommendations are also made. As we move forward, it will be important to ensure the recommendations are implemented.
The reports will also be forwarded to the Minister for Finance and I await with interest his comments on recommendations relating to a significant number of Departments. This aspect of the committee's work had not been done for several years and Deputy Perry initiated the new procedure. I hope the Chairman will continue the process. I also congratulate Mr. Purcell on his ten years in office. If he serves another ten years, it will be more than most of us will serve.
I congratulate the Chairman on his appointment and I wish to be associated with the thanks to Deputy Perry. I also welcome the new members of the committee. It is useful for the Committee of Public Accounts to get the right blend of experience, including new people with a new approach, and it helps to promote me to veteran status. I look forward to hearing the contributions of members and working in a new format. I hope it will bring forward elucidation from whoever comes before us.
I join other members in congratulating the new Chairman and wishing him well. I compliment Deputy Perry on the work he did. I made the point last week that there might be a temptation to use the Committee of Public Accounts for local gain at a given time. This has been resisted over the years. The late Jim Mitchell set a very high standard for those who will follow him from both sides of the House.
On Deputy McGuinness's point, it is important to point out that because of the work of this committee, many changes have been put in place, not least in the area of controls in the financial services area arising from the DIRT inquiry in particular. The work of this committee expanded to allow for the changed situation. It is a very powerful committee which must do positive work. I agree that there is a need to identify people who make errors, particularly if these are repeated.
I am concerned at times that things can go wrong when an initiative is taken. I would not want to stifle initiative by local authorities and others. We will be dealing with a fairly new issue regarding the case in Kilkenny, namely, underwater archaeology. It could be difficult to factor something like this into a budget. We need to be aware of these difficulties.
Blaming the IT system, as was the case for years, is not acceptable, and we should be able to point this out. The difficulty with the draft report is that it is approximately three years old. I presume many things will have occurred in the meantime. It is important to get a speedy report from the Minister for Finance.
I wish the Chairman well. Given his vast experience, particularly in the Ministries he held, I have no doubt he will do a good job and bring such experience to bear in this committee.
I join other members in congratulating the Chairman and wishing him well in his tenure. Members are pleased he got the position and look forward with interest to his performance. I pay tribute to Deputy Perry who went about his business in a tenacious fashion. I thank members for the welcome they extended to Deputy Deasy and me. I look forward to working with the committee, which has set a very high standard. The public appreciate the work it does. I am proud to be a member of the committee and look forward to working with the members.
I congratulate the Chairman on his appointment and acknowledge the work done by Deputy Perry. I also welcome the new members of the committee. A change is good in every walk of life. I would point out to the incoming Chairman that the committee can be as strong and as powerful as members decide. If we want to play a soft role and sit back week after week, that is the way it will be. If we decide to take a tougher approach, the committee can show itself to have far more teeth. We hear the same story week after week from the far side. The committee must take a stronger line, point out mistakes and consider how things can be done better in future. We can always look at what went wrong. However, it is a waste of time unless we learn lessons for the future. I hope the Chairman will consider this aspect.
I thank members for their comments. I will certainly take into account what they said. Perhaps today in private session, or next week in private session, we will deal with the points made by Deputy McGuinness. Many members of the public think we are here to investigate fraud, but the incidence of fraud in the public sector in Ireland is very limited, thank God. This is a great compliment to the integrity of civil and public servants.
I have a simple view of the job of this committee. It is central to financial accountability within the system of government, and we should approach it on that basis. Moneys are voted by the Oireachtas on the recommendation of the Minister for Finance. Decisions made at Cabinet are always informed by the cost of a proposal. If the estimated cost is totally out of line with the end outturn, the Government cannot operate effectively. We have seen from our experience in this committee that, week after week, services come in at sums totally out of line with the original estimate. There are examples of that again today.
There are always explanations for this. If one is sitting around a Cabinet table — I hope many members will be in the future — and if one is told a particular project will cost €200 million, one could say, "Yes". However, if one is told it will cost €1 billion, one might have a different view. The estimated cost is essential to the decision-making process, and it is core to Government. It is our job to ensure, in so far as Estimates are concerned, that they are not top of the head or ballpark figures. The expertise should be within the public service to have a fairly accurate estimate of the outturn in any particular project. It requires better explanations than have been given.
We will not be an effective watchdog in that respect if we just have our day in the sun when we hear witnesses and when what we say is in the newspapers. That is not an effective mechanism. As Deputy McGuinness said, we must have reporting mechanisms which elicit a response from the Minister for Finance over a short-term period, because long-term periods are meaningless in this exercise. I welcome what my predecessor, Deputy Perry, commenced but we need to have a discussion on how it will proceed. As Deputy Fleming said, this committee will be as strong as the members decide.
There are other issues such as value for money and there are some things which should not be done regardless of whether they are cheap or dear. However, that is another set of issues. There are specific issues we as a committee must examine such as the non-payment of DIRT in the time of the late Jim Mitchell, Deputy Dennehy and Deputy Rabbitte. Reporting is fundamental to the accountability aspect. A run in the newspapers, which is welcome, is frequently smiled at by the people who appear before us. It is only when hard reports with recommendations are made to the Minister for Finance, and he comes back within a short period and tells us what he thinks of what we are saying, that we can get that interchange which is at the core of accountability. I would like a longer discussion. However, for the purposes of today's meeting, I would like to move into private session.
The committee went into private session at11.20 a.m. and resumed in public session at11.40 a.m.
Mr. J. Purcell
(An tÁrd Reachtaire Cuntas agus Ciste) called and examined.