Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 29 Oct 1992

Vol. 424 No. 6

Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Bill, 1992: Second Stage.

Minister for Finance (Mr. B. Ahern)

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

From the earliest times, societies, kings and lords have addressed the issue of accountability — the obligation of officials or servants to answer for the responsibilities entrusted to them. We are told that public accountability was highly developed in classical Athens, where it was a matter of pride and principle. Indeed the idea of accountability is probably as old as organised government itself.

Aristotle, writing in the 4th century before Christ, said "some officials handle large sums of public money; it is therefore necessary to have other officials to receive and examine these accounts. These inspectors must not administer funds themselves." It would be difficult for anyone to argue with that statement today, more than 2,000 years on. Again, in the parable of the talents, we find servants giving account of their stewardship and receiving due reward and punishment for their action and inaction.

This Bill, then, which proposes the most far-reaching change in the statutory mandate of the Comptroller and Auditor General since the foundation of the State, deals with a very ancient but perennial problem of administration, that is, how best to render those holding public office accountable for the proper management and disposal of the resources entrusted to them. In a democracy such as ours this accountability is ultimately to the public.

The Comptroller and Auditor General, as one of the great officers of State, has a crucial role to play in making this public accountability a reality. There has since the foundation of the State been a very great increase in the volume and complexity of public expenditure and receipts and also in the number of different bodies administering public funds and other public resources. There is an ever greater need therefore to ensure good administration in the bodies concerned. The public have to be assured that those receiving and spending substantial amounts of public money are rendered accountable in a full and effective manner. In our system of government the Oireachtas, as the supreme legislative organ of State, appropriates the money needed for the public services. The Comptroller and Auditor General's function is to assure the Dáil, as representing the public, that the conditions set down by the Legislature are complied with by those charged with the stewardship of this money. This is why the independence of the Comptroller and Auditor General is so important.

This independence is assured by the fact that he holds a constitutional office, under Article 33 of the Constitution, which also sets down his basic responsibilities — to control on behalf of the State all disbursements and to audit all accounts of moneys administered by or under the authority of the Oireachtas, and to report to Dáil Éireann at stated periods as determined by law. The Constitution also provides for appointment to and removal from the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General and for the terms and conditions of the office to be determined by law.

All substantive legislation relating to the Comptroller and Auditor General however, predates the Constitution, being contained in the Exchequer and Audit Departments Acts, 1866 and 1921 and in the Comptroller and Auditor General Act, 1923. Such development as there has been in the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General since then has been on the basis of convention and practice.

The principal development of this nature has been the acceptance that he has a function in identifying and reporting on instances where it appears to him that there has been loss or waste or uneconomic expenditure by Government Departments. My Department have, for many years, supported the Comptroller and Auditor General in the exercise of this important non-statutory function. The latest development on this front has been the Comptroller and Auditor General's recent initiative of presenting reports on project audits — which focus on particular issues or areas of expenditure or revenue — together with his usual report on the Appropriation Accounts.

In the past 20 years or so, there have been ongoing developments in the practice of audit generally and, in particular, in relation to national audit. There is now, of necessity, a much greater emphasis on what is broadly termed "value for money" in the public sector. This is in addition to the traditional audit of accuracy and regularity which of course remains the cornerstone. Indeed new techniques of computer scrutiny have given greater sophistication to this traditional process.

In formulating this Bill, the Government undertook a comprehensive review of the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General, including an examination of developments in national auditing in other countries in recent years — particularly in those countries with a similar parliamentary tradition to our own. I think everyone supports the view that legislation is now required to update the existing law and to modernise, on a statutory basis, the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General, having regard to best international practice and our own national needs. Thus I am introducing this Bill to consolidate and modernise existing legislative provisions; to make additional provision to extend the range and scope of the Comptroller and Auditor General's scrutiny of public expenditure and the management of public resources in line with modern requirements; to provide for more effective arrangements for reporting by the Comptroller and Auditor General and to deal with other incidental and miscellaneous issues which now require attention.

The White Paper published with this Bill gives a detailed account of the issues and the reasoning behind the measures proposed and the explanatory memorandum outlines the purpose of the individual provisions of what is necessarily a quite technical Bill. On this account I do not think it necessary for me to speak at this Stage at great length on the detailed provisions of the Bill. I want rather to focus on the intention of the Bill and on a number of its more significant features.

The Bill consolidates and updates existing provisions in legislation relating to the constitutional role of the Comptroller and Auditor General, principally in regard to the comptroller function, section 2, and the auditor function, section 3. As a natural extension of his audit function in regard to the Government accounts, it provides in section 4 for the audit by him of the finance accounts. Also, a number of incidental and ancillary provisions have been made, to which I will refer later. But the two major new elements of the legislation relate to the nature of the audit process, and to the scope of that process.

The nature of the audit process will be enhanced by the addition of a new statutory role for the Comptroller and Auditor General in regard to value for money, section 9. The examination of value for money may be broken down into the three "Es", economy, efficiency and effectiveness. While pocket definitions can be misleading — these concepts are inter-related and, in practice, cannot be so readily separated — I think that, with that caveat, it is helpful to give the essence of the concepts. Economy relates to acquiring and using only the necessary resources at the least cost; efficiency means achieving the required output with the minimum of resources and effectiveness means that the outputs achieve the desired results.

I must explain that regarding effectiveness, certain problems arise which do not apply in relation to economy and efficiency. As my predecessor pointed out in this House on 14 March 1989, there are two areas which can cause concern in this regard.

The first relates to the difficulty, in the public sector, of establishing the degree to which changes in an area or sector affected by a programme are the results of that programme, since, in real life, programmes do not generally have a single objective with readily quantifiable results. What is most important, however, is that Departments and other bodies should have the necessary systems in place to enable them to appraise the effectiveness of their own operations in achieving policy objectives.

The second area relates to the link which exists between judgments on effectiveness and judgments on policy. The formulation of policy is the responsibility of Government and Ministers are answerable to the Dáil for policy matters in their Departments. National auditors in most countries would accept that it is not their business to examine policy and that they have no role in this regard. The problem is that when examining effectiveness in practice it can easily happen that questions arise as to the merits of the objectives of programmes being examined as well as on the basis of validity or suitability of the programme itself. Thus an auditor could very easily find himself being drawn into considering whether the objectives of a programme were reasonable in the first place and, directly or by inference, expressing opinions on the merits of the policy on which the objectives were based. If it were to happen that the Comptroller and Auditor General was in this way to be drawn into dealing with matters which belong to the political arena, his independence, and consequently his effectiveness, could be undermined. Here again, the important consideration is that it is the responsibility of Departments and other bodies to have the necessary systems in place to enable them to appraise the effectiveness of their own operations.

This consideration has been the central one determining the Government's approach to examinations by the Comptroller and Auditor General in relation to effectiveness. The Bill provides, therefore, that the Comptroller and Auditor General may, at his discretion, examine and report on the economy and efficiency of Departments and bodies, which will be expected to have in place the necessary systems for carrying out such appraisal of effectiveness so as to provide Ministers and management with the necessary information to take any corrective or policy action which may be indicated. Such systems will be subject to examination by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

In this way the danger of the Comptroller and Auditor General becoming involved, directly or indirectly, in the area of policy is avoided while, at the same time, the Dáil and the public have a reliable and independent assurance that evaluation of the effectiveness of expenditure is not being neglected. It will be noted that the power to examine the three "Es" is discretionary while the normal financial audit is mandatory. This distinction is necessary because it would not be possible for the Comptroller and Auditor General to carry out every year a value for money examination in every body he audits.

The scope of the Comptroller and Auditor General's audit will be extended to cover all the non-commercial State bodies not already statutorily audited by him, and a number of other bodies, principally in the education sector, section 5. These bodies are listed in the First Schedule. Also the health boards and the vocational education committees will be audited by him, sections 6 and 7. The Comptroller and Auditor General will, in addition, be empowered to examine funds under the aegis of bodies which he audits, and with appropriate ministerial approval, subsidiaries of such bodies. The two main categories not coming within the Comptroller and Auditor General's remit are local authorities and commercial State bodies. In the case of the former there is already accountability to elected local representatives while the activities of the latter come under the Joint Committee on Commercial State-sponsored Bodies. To involve the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee of Public Accounts in reviewing these categories would represent unnecessary duplication of accountability. It should be mentioned that the local government auditors' reports are made available to the Comptroller and Auditor General and in his report on the Appropriation Accounts he may draw attention to any matters in the local government auditors' reports which he considers to be significant.

A further very important extension of the scope of the Comptroller and Auditor General's operations will be the introduction of a new statutory power of discretionary inspection, section 8. He will be able to inspect and report on the accounts, books and records of commercial harbour authorities, the regional tourism organisations and any body, other than a commercial State body or a local authority, in respect of any year in which it received 50 per cent or more of its gross receipts directly from Departments or from the Central Fund, to check that public moneys have been spent for the purposes for which they were provided. This power of inspection is quite distinct from his power of audit. He will not be auditing the accounts of the bodies which he will inspect, and these bodies will continue to have their own auditors as at present. The purpose of this power is to enable the Comptroller and Auditor General to follow public funds as far as may be necessary so that he can satisfy himself, and assure the Dáil, that they have been correctly appropriated.

In addition to the measures I have already outlined, which represent the major policy content of the Bill, a number of incidental and ancillary provisions have been included. Many of these are of a consolidation nature; they are explained in the White Paper and in the explanatory memorandum and there is no need for me to deal with them at length here, but I will mention the more notable innovations and changes involved.

Section 12 provides for the Comptroller and Auditor General, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, to charge fees in respect of audits, inspections and examinations carried out by him.

Section 13 provides for the appointment by the Comptroller and Auditor General of a suitably qualified independent person to audit on his behalf the Appropriation Account for his office and, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, to examine his office in regard to economy, efficiency and management effectiveness. For constitutional reasons, that person's report will be appended to the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the Appropriation Account of his office.

Section 17 provides for the transfer of staff from the Office of the Minister for the Environment to the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General as audits are transferred from the Local Government Audit Service to the Comptroller and Auditor General consequent on the provisions of this Bill.

Section 19 sets out, for the first time in statutory form, the duty of accounting officers to give evidence to the Committee of Public Accounts in regard to regularity and propriety, economy and efficiency, management effectiveness and matters arising from special reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Section 24 provides that different provisions of the Bill can be brought into effect at different times by ministerial order. The large amount of new work passing to the Comptroller and Auditor General under this Bill will have to be introduced on a phased basis. I want to assure the House that it is the Government's intention to bring the different provisions of this Bill into effect with the minimum of delay.

Other sections provide for repeal of obsolete legislation and consolidation of existing measures so that we will have a comprehensive piece of modern legislation covering the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Deputies will be aware of the close and complementary relationship which exists between the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee of Public Accounts. Heretofore the Committee of Public Accounts' terms of reference related specifically to the examination of the appropriation accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General's reports thereon. The committee functions by calling the accounting officers of Departments to give evidence to them, thereby ensuring accountability to the Dáil.

The important work which the Committee of Public Accounts do will now be adjusted to correspond to the extended role of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The White Paper sets down the revised terms of reference of the committee which the Government will propose to the Dáil after this Bill has been enacted. The committee's role will be extended to cover all audits, examinations and inspections carried out by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

For the first time, then, the committee will be given a focal role in examining the accounts of all the non-commercial State bodies, the health boards, the vocational education committees, and certain other educational and academic institutions. In addition, the Committee of Public Accounts will examine on behalf of the Dáil the Comptroller and Auditor General's reports on his examinations of economy, efficiency and management effectiveness and on inspections he has carried out on bodies which receive 50 per cent or more of their revenue directly from Government Departments, as well as regional tourism organisations and the commercial harbour authorities.

As I have already mentioned, for the first time the duties of accounting officers in giving evidence before the Committee of Public Accounts will be set down in legislation. This accountability will complement the additional powers proposed for the Comptroller and Auditor General in regard to Government accounts, and for the Committee of Public Accounts.

At this point it is timely for me to express my appreciation of the valuable and important work which the Committee of Public Accounts do on behalf of this House. I would like to take this opportunity to recognise the along term interest and support of the Chairman of the Committee, Deputy Gay Mitchell, for the work which is coming to fruition in this Bill. In particular, the recommendations of the committee in their Special Report on the Future Role of the Comptroller and Auditor General have contributed to the development of the ideas set out in the White Paper and embodied in the Bill.

I am aware of concerns among staff of the Local Government Audit Service about the implications for them of the transfer of certain audits to the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. I would like to reassure them that the proposals will not result in a situation whereby staff in that service will be left high and dry in the new audit environment. The basic approach will be that staff will be transferred to the Comptroller and Auditor General's office at the time the work is being transferred. There will be a much greater degree of co-operation and co-ordination between the Comptroller and Auditor General's office and the Local Government Audit Service. The Bill will cause no diminution of work, in terms of quality and quantity, for auditors. My Department will be available to discuss with the relevant unions any concerns the staff may have.

In conclusion, I believe that this Bill will result in a more effective scrutiny of public expenditure with greater emphasis on value for money and the efficient use of resources in Departments and bodies supported by public funds. This will ensure a more comprehensive public accountability, thereby contributing to a more economical and effective public service — in short, better value for the taxpayer.

Mr. G. Mitchell

I have relentlessly pursued the introduction of this legislation over a number of years. I have probably been identified with seeking its introduction more than any other Member of this House. Therefore, I welcome it. However, as we have an adversarial system, it would be remiss of me if I did not point out during my contribution, which in general welcomes this measure, what I consider to be the shortcomings in the Bill. I hope the Minister will consider sending the Bill to the Committee of Public Accounts for Committee Stage and allowing that committee to convert to a legislative committee for that purpose. If he does so I can assure him that the Bill will be treated with absolute fairness and his rights as Minister will not be interfered with in anyway.

The last major legislation affecting the Office of Comptroller and Auditor General was the Exchequer and Audit Departments Act, 1866, which was introduced by Gladstone who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Estimates for the Civil Services of the then United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland totalled £7 million in that year. In any given year now Exchequer expenditure, including debt servicing, would exceed £15 billion. One per cent of £15 billion is £150 million. Are any of us so optimistically confident in the system that we cannot suspect at least 1 per cent of wasteful spending? Could the amount be much higher? The volume, complexity and variety of Government financial transactions have multiplied enormously over the years given that the State spends the equivalent of about two-thirds of GNP.

The independence of the Comptroller and Auditor General is enshrined in the 1937 Constitution. He is appointed by the President in a manner akin to the appointment of a High Court judge, on the nomination of the Government with the approval of the Dáil. He may be removed from office only for stated mis-behaviour and then only by resolution of both Houses of the Oireachtas. Having been given this constitutional independence he was then left dependent on tools shaped in mid-Victorian times. In recent years the Committee of Public Accounts have encouraged the Comptroller and Auditor General to take a growing interest in value for money, VFM, and not simply regulatory audits. The Department of Finance have facilitated this to a great extent though on a non-statutory basis until now.

In 1988 the Committee of Public Accounts appointed the Advisory Group on Public Financial Accountability under my chairmanship and with the Comptroller and Auditor General, the immediate past President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Chief Executive of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Director of the Institute of Public Administration as members. That advisory group met on several occasions, interviewed Irish and foreign witnesses and looked at a number of models of parliamentary accountability abroad before reporting in a timely fashion to the Committee of Public Accounts who examined the group before endorsing the report and presenting it to Dáil Éireann. That report was debated by the Dáil in 1988 and many of its recommendations are contained in the current legislation. I would not like to let the occasion pass without paying tribute to the people who served on the advisory group, at no expense to the State. They did sterling work in preparing that report for the committee.

Essentially the Committee of Public Accounts recommended that the Comptroller and Auditor General and the committee should have the power to pursue public moneys wherever they saw fit, including grants to private individuals or companies whether directly or indirectly through the Exchequer. They recommended that the Comptroller and Auditor General should have the statutory power to carry out value for money audits based on economy, efficiency and effectiveness. Though the legislation allows for economy and efficiency audits, it has restricted him to examining the systems, procedures and practices employed by Departments for evaluating the effectiveness of their operations rather than allowing him evaluate whether a programme is effective.

To illustrate the three "E's", a polio vaccination programme would be measured for economy by whether the vaccine was purchased at the most economic price consistent with quality; efficiency would be considered by measuring the number of shots per vaccine purchased against the optimum number which should be achieved; and effectiveness would be measured by the incidence of polio, whether the problem was controlled or reduced? The Department feel that it is not the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General to question policy decisions, hence the terminology used in the legislation in relation to effectiveness. I believe that both the Committee of Public Accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General can live with this restriction. However, the committee's recommendation that the Comptroller and Auditor General should have the power to pursue all public expenditure is restricted to pursuing expenditure which has been received directly from the Exchequer, that is, not via a State agency. In addition the Comptroller and Auditor General will be given power to audit all non-commercial State agencies, including the IDA, and the Public Accounts Committee remit is being extended to cover all these agencies which will have to send witnesses to appear before the committee.

The Committee's recommendation that the Comptroller and Auditor General should be relieved of the audit of commercial State bodies but should continue to have inspection rights for all such bodies has not been accepted by the Government and it is proposed to relieve him of the remaining commercial audits which he undertakes. In future everything audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General will be subject to the Public Accounts Committee's examination. This is to be extended, as was recommended, to include vocational education committees and health boards and, in addition, hospitals which receive over 50 per cent of funding directly from the State.

These developments in so far as they go are welcome but the Comptroller and Auditor General should have inspection rights in respect of commercial State bodies where he feels that the public interest is involved. I will cite a couple of examples. In Northern Ireland when the De Lorean factory was established the Public Accounts Committee in Britain and the Comptroller and Auditor General under the National Audit Act, 1983, which replaced the 1866 Act in Britain, pursued the matter and inquired into the funds De Lorean received. That was a perfectly proper exercise. The Public Accounts Committee were not reviewing the commercial efficiency of the company but were examining the probity, integrity and correctness of the expenditure made.

The Comptroller and Auditor General should continue to have inspection rights for that purpose. One of the members of the board of Telecom apparently took a decision to commission a report on the privatisation of Telecom. Privatisation is a decision to sell a State asset and it relates to more than the commercial running of the company involved. It is the same as selling a couple of ships or any other assets such as buildings which the State might own. The Comptroller and Auditor General would inquire as to whether these assets when sold realised reasonable value for the State. The sale of shares would be similar, or any report on a proposal to commission the sale of shares. Anything which the State might reasonably expect to obtain from the sale of an asset should fall within his remit. He will never know about such matters unless he has inspection rights. The Bill is weak in this respect, There should be provision for inspection rights, not to oversee commercial operations but to ensure financial probity, correctness in expenditure and the absence of fraud. Anything which might take from or reduce the State's potential revenue should fall correctly within his terms of reference.

It should be mentioned in passing that the Comptroller's function is not being changed in any way. The Department of Finance must seek the approval of the Comptroller and Auditor General before they can draw moneys from the Exchequer. He will grant this automatically by certifying that the Dáil has voted money for that purpose, once he is assured that this is the case. This is normally automatic, but it is an important financial control which should continue.

The changes being made relate essentially to the role of the Auditor General. While I welcome them, I wish to compare the Public Accounts Committee's special report with the White Paper and Bill published by the Government and to put on record where the Public Accounts Committee's recommendations have been accepted or not accepted, or accepted in part, or not addressed by the legislation. For anybody reading this debate in the future it is important that those variations should be put on the record.

PAC recommended that the committee should be consulted before the name of the appointee for Comptroller and Auditor General is put before the Dáil by the Government. This has not been accepted. I do not understand the reason. In Britain the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee virtually appoints the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Prime Minister is the person who brings forward the nomination but he virtually leaves it to the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. The report did not suggest that this should happen here but it suggested that the committee should be consulted. The Comptroller and Auditor General is the only constitutional officer who works directly for this House, not for the Executive. That is an important distinction. I will not always be a member of the committee or its chairman but I believe the committee should be consulted, even on an informal basis, before the Comptroller and Auditor General is appointed. The Government have not accepted that recommendation in the Bill and the White Paper. The Government's view is that they do not consider this necessary since the members of the Public Accounts Committee as Members of the Dáil are already involved in the nomination process. It seems we are prepared to empower anybody bar the Dáil and we are the Dáil. We should seek to change this. I hope the Minister will consider putting in place an informal process whereby the views of the PAC will be considered before the appointment of a Comptroller and Auditor General. The committee also recommended that the appointment and removal provisions in the 1923 Act should be brought into line with the Constitution. This has been accepted. The proposed action is contained in the Fourth Schedule to the Bill. It is proposed to repeal provisions in the 1923 Act and let the Constitution serve as statutory backing.

The third recommendation by the Public Accounts Committee was that the retiring age for the Comptroller and Auditor General should be 65. This has been accepted and the proposed action is in section 15 (6) (a) of the Bill. The retirement age of 65 is to be stipulated in the new Act for future Comptroller and Auditors General.

The fourth recommendation by the committee is that the Comptroller and Auditor General should take the views of the Public Accounts Committee into account when drawing up his work programme. This was not addressed in the White Paper but I am assured by the Comptroller and Auditor General that it is accepted in principle. I understand the Comptroller and Auditor General will suggest an annual meeting with the Public Accounts Committee dedicated to listening to the committee's proposals prior to finalising his annual audit plan. That is a proper way of proceeding.

The fifth recommendation that the Department of Finance powers of direction to the Comptroller and Auditor General should be terminated has been accepted and the proposed action is outlined in the Fourth Schedule to the Bill. The offending sections in Acts are to be repealed.

The sixth recommendation is that the Public Accounts Committee should have a central role in determining the Estimate for the Comptroller and Auditor General's Office. This has not been accepted. The Government's view in the White Paper is that Article 28.4 of the Constitution makes it clear that it is the task of the Government alone to prepare Estimates each year and submit them to the Dáil for consideration. They state that the adoption of the Public Accounts Committee recommendation would in effect introduce practice or convention which would lead to a de facto position where the Government would become merely the conduit for the presentation of the Comptroller and Auditor General's Estimate to the House. In Britain, because the Comptroller and Auditor General is Parliament's officer, it is the Public Accounts Committee which presents directly to Parliament the Estimate for the Comptroller and Auditor General's Office. The committee accept that the Minister for Finance has a constitutional role in this regard and that he must present the Estimate, but it recommended that the committee should present the Estimate to the Department. The Minister would not become a conduit because he could change the Estimate if he wished. It would be up to the Public Accounts Committee to let the House know that the Comptroller and Auditor General's Estimate had been changed and to seek explanations for that. It made these recommendations because, theoretically we cannot make the Comptroller and Auditor General independent, tell him to go after wasteful spending and act on behalf of this House if a Department of State can circumvent his independence by managing his budget. The Committee of Public Accounts is an all-party committee made up of six Members of Fianna Fáil, four Members of Fine Gael, one Member of Labour and one Member of The Democratic Left. It never divides on a party political basis. There are a number of safeguards and the Minister would have the last word on bringing the Estimate into the House. I do not see why that recommendation has not been accepted.

If we are to allow the Comptroller and Auditor General proper powers of audit then he should be given a proper budget and at the outset the Public Accounts Committee should have an input into the budget he is given so that if necessary we can hire professional services to assist him in that regard.

The seventh recommendation was that the Comptroller and Auditor General should have flexibility regarding staffing and remuneration matters. This has been partially accepted. The Government views are in the White Paper at paragraph 4.9 and are as follows:

...exemptions from the disciplines applying generally to the Exchequer-financed agencies could over time result in grading and pay levels which would themselves involve additional expenditure and because of the inevitable demonstration effect would have very expensive repercussions elsewhere in the public sector.

The proposed action is in the same paragraph of the White Paper, 4.9:

...having regard to the arrangements for delegated administrative budgets in Departments, the Minister for Finance will explore with the C & AG the extent to which some additional flexibility in the allocation of resources might be introduced within the limits of agreed budgets for administrative costs.

The eighth recommendation was that the audit of the Comptroller and Auditor General's office would be taken by an external auditor. The Government's view is in section 13 of the Bill and at paragraph 4.8 of the White Paper. It is that the Constitution requires the Comptroller and Auditor General to audit all accounts of budgets administered by or under the authority of the Oireachtas and that on this basis the legislation will make provision for the appointment of an external auditor by the Comptroller and Auditor General to undertake the audit of the Comptroller and Auditor General's Office. I think that is a reasonable compromise in all circumstances.

The ninth recommendation was that the format of the finance accounts should be revised and they should be audited before submission to the Oireachtas. This has been accepted and the proposed action is in section 4 of the Bill and paragraph 3.3 of the White Paper. It deals with the format of finance accounts already revised to the satisfaction of the Committee of Public Accounts and to the satisfaction of the Comptroller and Auditor General. It says that the legislation will make provision for the Comptroller and Auditor General to audit the accounts and their submission to the Oireachtas. That is a welcome development because what the Comptroller and Auditor General has been doing up to now is auditing the various parts of the finance accounts but not the final finance accounts themselves.

The tenth recommendation is that the Comptroller and Auditor General should be relieved of responsibility for audit of commercial semi-State bodies. The proposed action is contained in the White Paper at paragraph 3.6 and has been accepted, but the legislation will not provide for the Comptroller and Auditor General's audit of commercial State-sponsored bodies with the exception of Temple Bar Properties Ltd., which is statutorily audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General and whose financial audit will continue to be performed by him.

The eleventh recommendation is that the Comptroller and Auditor General should be given access inspection rights, with reporting responsibility to Dáil Éireann, in the case of commercial State-sponsored bodies and such reports should be subject to examination and report by the committee of Public Accounts. This has not been accepted. The Government's view is contained in section 8 (3) of the Bill and at paragraph 3.6 of the White Paper. I have already made my point about this. I fail to understand why this has not been accepted. I hope that will be recognised and that the Comptroller and Auditor General would have inspection rights. For example, in a De Lorean type affair, if De Lorean had located in the Republic rather than in Northern Ireland we would not have been able to pursue it at Public Accounts Committee level whereas the Public Accounts Committee in Britain were able to pursue it. I am not referring to the commercial running of any agency but to the use of public funds. In my view that is perfectly within the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee of Public Accounts.

The twelfth recommendation is that the audit of non-commercial State sponsored bodies should continue to be the responsibility of the Comptroller and Auditor General reporting to Dáil Éireann and such reports should be subject to examination and report by the Committee of Public Accounts. This has been accepted. The proposed action is in section 5 (1) of the Bill and at paragraph 3.4 of the White Paper and the legislation provides for the Comptroller and Auditor General to audit all non-commercial State-sponsored bodies.

The thirteenth recommendation is that the Comptroller an Auditor General should examine the feasibility of using private sector auditors for the financial audit of State-sponsored bodies. The Government accepted this and the proposed action is at section 16 (2) of the Bill. The legislation will provide for the appointment of agents by the Comptroller and Auditor General to undertake audits. I welcome that.

The fourteenth recommendation is that there should be an audit report on all State-sponsored bodies to Dáil Éireann over and above the normal audit opinion or certificate. This was partially accepted. The Government's view is in the White Paper at paragraph 3.12. It says that the Comptroller and Auditor General reporting on commercial State-sponsored bodies is inappropriate. The proposed action is in the Bill at section 11 (2) (a) (ii) and in the White Paper at paragraph 3.12. It says that legislation will enable the Comptroller and Auditor General to prepare reports on general matters arising from his audits that this would facilitate the preparation of special reports on non-commercial State-sponsored bodies. I think we could live with that.

The fifteenth recommendation is that the Comptroller and Auditor General should have access inspection rights in all cases where (a) the State provides 50 per cent or more of the body's capital funding, or (b) the body receives 50 per cent or more of its annual revenues or sums in excess of a specified amount directly or indirectly from the State, that he should report his findings to Dáil Éireann and that such reports should be subject to examination and report by the Committee of Public Accounts. That recommendation was not accepted. The Government's view, set out in section 8 (3) of the Bill and in paragraph 3.6 of the White Paper, is that the Comptroller and Auditor General's inspection rights should not cover bodies which receive 50 per cent or more of their capital funding form the State, presumably because this would encompass commercial State-sponsored bodies. It has been partially accepted because in section 8 (1) of the Bill and at paragraph 3.10 of the White Paper it says that legislation will provide for the Comptroller and Auditor General's inspection of bodies which receive 50 per cent or more of their annual income directly from the State. In the White Paper at paragraph 3.11 it says that as regards bodies which receive 50 per cent or more of their annual income indirectly from the State, the Government consider:

that the C & AG should, in the context of his proposed wider remit, concentrate his efforts on the arrangements within those agencies [which are providing the funds] for monitoring the operations of bodies receiving grants. Should it be necessary, the Government will be prepared to review this aspect again in the light of experience gained over the next few years.

Say, for example, the State directly funds some health projects. But then, instead of doing that, we create a health agency and put the money into that agency which in turn pays it on to another body. The Comptroller and Auditor General cannot then audit it. The Health Education Bureau was an agency that came under the Department. It was out of the Department and the funding of the agen-Department; and the funding of the agencies it funded was no different than it would have been if the money came directly from the Department. Yet under the provisions of this Bill unless the money comes directly from the Department or the Exchequer, either through a direct grant from the Department or a direct grant form the Central Fund, the Comptroller and Auditor General will not have audit rights. That is something which I consider to be a weakness in the Bill that should be considered on Committee Stage.

The sixteenth recommendation was that the audit of non-directly elected local or regional authorities should be carried out by the Comptroller and Auditor General with a reporting responsibility to Dáil Éireann and that such reports should be subject to examination and report by the Committee of Public Accounts. This has been accepted and the proposed action is in sections 6 and 7 of the Bill and at paragraph 3.5 of the White Paper. Legislation provides for the Comptroller and Auditor General to audit health boards and vocational education committees with reporting responsibility to the Oireachtas. The Comptroller and Auditor General will have inspection rights rather than audit rights in relation to commercial harbour authorities and regional tourism authorities. Their audit will continue to be performed by the local government audit service.

There is a situation where the Comptroller and Auditor General is being given inspection rights. Should the Comptroller and Auditor General not be given the same inspection rights in respect of commercial State bodies so that he need not get involved if there is no reason for him to do so? If he suspects that something is wrong should he not have the right to look at the accounts?

Mr. Roche

The Deputy is straying into a dangerous area; he has done very well up to now.

Mr. G. Mitchell

Let us take the case of Aer Lingus Holidays Limited.

Mr. Roche

That is sub judice.

Mr. G. Mitchell

It is not just a question of their performance but rather what happened in terms of financial accountability and the diminution in the value of the State's assets in relation to the shares held in that company. This goes beyond the question of effectiveness to one of strict financial accountability. In those circumstances the inspection rights being given to the Comptroller and Auditor General in relation to harbour boards and regional tourism authorities should be extended to cover commercial State bodies so that he would be enabled to present a report to the House if he felt it was necessary to do so. It does not mean that he would inspect their accounts every year but at least he would have the right to do so.

Recommendation No. 17 of the committee was that the Comptroller and Auditor General should be given access inspection rights in directly elected local authorities in respect of moneys provided by central Government and that he should report to Dáil Éireann on how these moneys are used and that such reports should be subject to examination and report by the Committee of Public Accounts. This recommendation was not accepted and the Government's view is set out in section 8 (3) of the Bill and paragraph 3.5 of the White Paper.

It is suggested that public accountability requirements would be met by strengthening and formalising existing liaison arrangements between the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Local Government Audit Service in order to facilitate closer oversight of Exchequer funding to directly elected local authorities. I accept that this is a reasonable way to proceed. Indeed, since the report of the Committee of Public Accounts was presented there has been greater co-operation between the Local Government Auditor and the Comptroller and Auditor General. As a matter of practice, the Department of the Environment make the Local Government Auditor's reports available to the Comptroller and Auditor General and he draws the attention of the Committee of Public Accounts to any matters he considers necessary. I accept that directly elected local authorities are in a different position because there is a body to which they are accountable. Provided that the working arrangements can be strengthened as suggested that is a reasonable way to proceed.

The Committee of Public Accounts suggested in recommendation No. 18 that the possibility of a Local Government Audit Commission headed by the Comptroller and Auditor General should be looked at separately by the committee but they have not followed this recommendation up because it has been overtaken by events. For instance, the relationship between the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Local Government Auditor has been strengthened and this arrangement seems to be working quite well. This should lead to any difficulties being overcome.

Recommendation No. 19 was that there should be no change in the operation of the Comptroller function. As I said, this recommendation has been accepted and this matter is addressed in section 2 of the Bill and paragraph 4.3 of the White Paper.

Recommendation No. 20 was that the financial and regularity audit should remain as an important feature of the Comptroller and Auditor General's work. This has also been accepted and is dealt with in section 3 (1) and (5) of the Bill and paragraph 2.1 of the White Paper.

Recommendation No. 21 was that there should be a structured development of the internal audit function within Government Departments. This recommendation has been accepted. I have been informed that action has already been taken in this regard consequent on the Comptroller and Auditor General's project audit report on internal audit in central Government. This is a welcome development because an internal audit is every bit as important as an external audit. The hand of the external auditor would be strengthened if he knew that there were sound systems in place. The development of the Institute of Internal Auditors, many of whom are employed in the public sector, is welcome because they, in turn, encourage standards of excellence in relation to internal audits and this can only be to the benefit of the taxpayer and the public in general.

Recommendation No. 22 was that the dates for the annual submission and audit of accounts should be brought forward. This has been accepted and is dealt with in section 3 (9) and (11) of the Bill and paragraph 4.7 of the White Paper. Legislation will provide for submission of Appropriation Accounts by 31 March and the Comptroller and Auditor General's report thereon to Dáil Éireann by 30 September, compared with the current dates of 30 April and 31 October, respectively. It is a good idea to bring the dates forward. However it would be difficult to bring the date forward any further than 30 September because the Comptroller and Auditor General has to wait for the books to be closed and presented to him. This must now be done by the end of March and this gives him six months to complete his audit. This is a big undertaking but it would be a substantial improvement if the audit reports could be presented within nine months of the closing date.

Recommendation No. 23 was that a system of interim reporting by the Comptroller and Auditor General to Dáil Éireann should be introduced. This has been accepted in principle and is dealt with in section 11 (2) of the Bill and paragraphs 3.12 and 4.5 of the White Paper. I am of the view that once the Comptroller and Auditor General completes his report and places it in the Library it should automatically be sent to the Committee of Public Accounts. However very often we find that a dozen interim reports are listed on the Order Paper waiting for someone to move a motion so that they can be sent to the Committee of Public Accounts. We should make it a general rule that they should be sent to the Committee of Public Accounts once the Comptroller and Auditor General presents his report. I understand that this will happen in the future.

Recommendation No. 24 is that official Comptroller and Auditor General queries should be answered by Departments within a month of their issue. This recommendation has not been addressed. This can be regarded as an internal administration matter which does not require legislation but I would remind the House and the Minister that this recommendation has been made. Departments should be required to adhere to this recommendation.

Recommendation No. 25 was that a more structured approach to VFM audit using audit based methodologies should be employed. This has been accepted by the Comptroller and Auditor General. The project audits undertaken on a pilot basis employed a structured methodology.

Recommendation No. 26 was that value for money audits should include matters relating to effectiveness as well as economy and efficiency but not to the extent of questioning the merits of policy objectives. This has been partially accepted. As I said, the Government's view is contained in section 9 of the Bill and in paragraphs 2.3-2.7 of the White Paper. Their view is that there is no problem with economy and efficiency aspect of VFM audit. However, the legislation will provide that the Comptroller and Auditor General's role in relation to effectiveness will be to examine the systems, procedures and practices employed by the Department or organisation concerned for evaluating the effectiveness of their operations rather than himself carrying out the examination of whether a programme of expenditure is effective. I referred to this matter earlier and think that this is something both the Committee of Public Accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General can live with.

Recommendation No. 27 was that value for money audit should be applied to all organisations in the State, semi-State and local government sectors. This has been accepted and is dealt with in section 9 of the Bill and paragraph 2.2 of the White Paper.

Recommendation No. 28 was that the Comptroller and Auditor General should be given a statutory mandate for value for money audit. This has been accepted and is dealt with in section 9 of the Bill and paragraph 2.2 of the White Paper. Legislation will provide the statutory basis.

Recommendation No. 29 was that value for money audit reports should be made to Dáil Éireann on an individual basis. This recommendation has been accepted and is dealt with in section 11 (2) (a) of the Bill and paragraph 4.5 of the White Paper.

Recommendation No. 30 was that the chairman of the committee should nominate a deputy chairman on an informal basis. This is an internal matter for the committee and has been addressed.

Recommendation No. 31 was that the role and status of the chairman of the committee should be addressed. This has not been addressed in the Bill or the White Paper. I cannot act as a judge in my own cause but I should say as someone who does not expect to be chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts forever that the role of the chairmen of committees of this House should be strengthened. It is time that we started taking ourselves more seriously. Is it any wonder that the Gleeson Commission had the temerity to come up with the recommendations they made when we do not take ourselves seriously? I presume they now expect this house to rubber stamp those recommendations and implement them. I fail to understand the reason chairmen of committees of this House are not properly resourced because they are not in conflict with the Executive. There seems to be a fear within Government Departments that if we were to do this the House might start doing its jobs as a House of Representatives. Is it not time we started to do that? Committees should be properly resourced and required to give an account of their stewardship. That matter is not addressed in the legislation or the White Paper. That recommendation was made unanimously by the advisory group, which included all the external personnel I mentioned, was endorsed by the Committee of Public Accounts and debated in this House. Everybody in this House will accept that the chairmen of committees should be encouraged to take a fuller and more active role in the work they do for this House.

The report recommends that membership of the Committee should automatically lapse in the case of a member failing to attend six consecutive meetings. This is a matter for Standing Orders and is not addressed in the White Paper or the Bill. Another recommendation is that the committee should be empowered to appoint sub-committees — neither is this matter addressed in the White Paper, or the Bill. In the past the committee have appointed sub-committees although it is not one of their terms of reference. Perhaps it should be included in the terms of reference in case the committee wish to appoint sub-committees from time to time. The report recommends that staff should be subject to direction and under the day-to-day supervision of the committee and their chairman. That matter is not addressed in the White Paper or the Bill. It should be dealt with by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. In practice I have an excellent working relationship with the staff of the Committee of Public Accounts and I am satisfied with the arrangements, but I believe that close co-operation between the staff and the committee is very important.

Another recommendation of the committee is (a) the functions of the former Committee on Public Expenditure should be assigned to the Committee of Public Accounts and (b) the committee should be empowered to review any agency or body who receive substantial funds from the State. Part (a) of that recommendation is not addressed in the White Paper or the Bill, whereas part (b) is partially accepted — in section 19 (1) of the Bill and paragraph 4.11 of the White Paper. It is suggested that a review of the committee's powers correspond to the audit and inspection rights of the Comptroller and Auditor General. By and large I accept that, but where the committee believe that there is misappropriation of State expenditure by whatever body, they should be empowered to send for persons, papers and records and to compel attendance of the people involved to find out whether or not the suspicions are well founded.

The committee recommend that their reports, when adopted, should be automatically laid before the Dáil and published and that there should be a fixed time limit for response by the Minister for Finance to committee reports. It has been accepted that the reports be laid before the Dáil and published but the matter of the response by the Minister has not been addressed. Whereas reports, once they have been presented to the Dáil and published, come back in a reasonable period, there should be an obligation on the Minister to respond within a fixed period to the findings of the committee.

The report also recommends that the committee should have discretion to seek Dáil debates on their reports. That matter is not addressed in the White Paper or the Bill. It should be considered in reform of the House and in the proposals to be put before the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. It appears likely that the committee will issue a number of interim reports during the year rather than just the annual report. If the committee believe that a particular report should be drawn to the attention of the Houses and debated, they should have the discretion to seek Dáil debates on such a report. I am not suggesting that this should be done all the time but bearing in mind that the House is the parent body of the committee, if the committee believe that the attention of the House should be brought to a certain matter, they should be empowered to do so.

Another recommendation is that the committee should be empowered to extend privilege to witnesses appearing before them. No decision has been made on that matter. The White Paper states that the issue of parliamentary privilege, which should also apply to other Oireachtas committees, is under consideration. This matter needs to be addressed. I can understand that the question might arise as to what one would do in the event of abuses of this privilege. That matter was addressed in the report of the Committee of Public Accounts and we also sought the opinion of senior counsel. I suggest that we proceed as outlined in the oaths Act, that is, with the authorisation of the Ceann Comhairle or the Cathaoirleach. An Oireachtas committee can administer an oath to any witness appearing before them. I understand that at the committee dealing with the Limerick Markets Bill——

Mr. Spring

Deputy Tunney's Bill.

Mr. G. Mitchell

——evidence was taken under oath. Perhaps I am wrong but I think that was the case. The oaths Act empowers the Ceann Comhairle and the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad to confer on a committee the right to hear evidence under oath. Similarly, in relation to privilege it may be possible for us to empower the Ceann Comhairle or the Cathaoirleach to confer on a committee the right to hear evidence under privilege and where that privilege is abused to withdraw that right. The committee set out ways in which this might be done. It is important that it be done not just because people appearing before the committee might feel they cannot give certain information because the meetings are held in public and are reported but if accounting officers, who are practically the only witnesses to appear before the Committee of Public Accounts, say something which is a slip of the tongue and it has implications for people outside the House they have only a limited privilege; they do not have full privilege as have members of the committee. That matter needs to be considered to ensure that accounting officers and witnesses appearing before committees are protected and that committees are effective.

Another recommendation of the report is that the committee should draw up and publish an annual work programme. The proposed action, contained in paragraph 4.11 of the White Paper, is that the revised terms of reference for the Committee of Public Accounts include a provision that the committee shall present to Dáil Éireann progress report on their activities and plans. At the beginning of the year I as chairman sit down with the staff of the committee and set out a draft plan. This is brought to the attention of the committee for approval and it is amended as necessary during the year. This is something the committee should be required to do and I welcome its inclusion in the White Paper. The final recommendation of the report is that the committee should be given extended terms of reference. That recommendation has been partially accepted.

There are strengths and weaknesses in the legislation. Substantial progress has been made but mostly in relation to the Comptroller and Auditor General. Progress has not been made to the extent we would have wished in relation to the Committee of Public Accounts. This legislation is a signal move with which I am happy to be identified. It seems strange that in this day and age when we as a Parliament empower tribunals, court-appointed and ministerial-appointed inspectors and so on to carry out inquiries but do not empower ourselves to do so, it is no wonder that Gleeson made such recommendations. Under the Constitution this House is the House of representatives; it is not just a Legislature. In all other parliamentary democracies, committees of the House of Representatives are empowered to compel the attendance of witnesses — and severe penalties may be imposed for non-attendance — in order to pursue inquiries. We have power to give our committees that same standing, but why do we refuse to do so? We refuse to do it because there is an over-concentration of authority in church and State affairs. It is time for greater parliamentary democracy and accountability.

The Committee of Public Accounts published a very difficult report without dividing on a party basis in Carysfort at no additional cost to the State and that committee — and other committees of the House — could have carried out many other inquiries in relation to Greencore, Telecom and others. It will cost a great deal more to publish some of the reports we are getting than if they had been prepared by committees of this House. The fees being charged for these reports — outside this House — would make anybody blush and there is no reason committees of this House could not conduct inquiries and present these reports. As a House we have allowed ourselves to be dictated to and controlled outside it. Instead of the Executive being a committee of this House — it is no more than that, albeit the most powerful committee set down in the Constitution — the committee of the House, known as the Executive, is requiring the House on a constant basis to work to its will rather than the other way round.

The Government are unduly influenced — I am not talking specifically in relation to this legislation but in general —by the permanent public servants. Somewhere along the line they have been able to divide and conquer, we are all whipped into line. I am not blaming this Government only, it has been happening over a long period. We are fearful of empowering our own House to do the job which the Constitution says it should do. The Minister should examine that matter, specifically in relation to the Committee of Public Accounts, and generally in relation to committees of the House. Governments change and their members can find themselves in Opposition. It is time that the House of Representatives empowered itself to carry out many of the examinations which we are devolving to others at great cost to the State.

I wish to thank the Minister for the courtesy extended to me in relation to the publication of this Bill and for his kind words about me in his introduction. I also wish to thank the Secretary of the Department of Finance for the many courtesies extended to me as chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts for the past number of years. I wish to pay tribute to all the accounting officers who must appear before the committee and, in the full glare of publicity, render an account of their stewardship. We are very well served by an upright and dedicated group of public servants whose probity would be difficult to equal in any other State. I should also like to express our appreciation of the excellent work done by the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff and to express a special word of appreciation to the current holder of that office, Mr. P. L. McDonnell, with whom I have worked in close association for a number of years. He is a man of great maturity and judgment and is most unassuming and helpful. I wish to praise the clerk and assistant clerk — and other staff — of the Committee of Public Accounts for the pleasant and efficient manner in which they execute their duties and I thank them for responding well to the changing role of the committee in recent years.

I also wish to praise the members of the Committee of Public Accounts because, although it is an all-party committee made up of six Fianna Fáil members, four Fine Gael members, one Labour member and one Democratic Left member, we have never divided on party lines despite some trying investigations. We have a working relationship which would be difficult to equal. I have the great honour to be their chairman and I hope, in the critical examination of this Bill, that I fairly reflected the views of the Committee of Public Accounts as stated in the report which we laid before the House.

I hope that the legislation now before the House will be considered in a calm and proper manner and not turned into a political football for other purposes. This Bill is long overdue and we should give it quiet disquisition. It specifically relates to this House since the Comptroller and Auditor General is an officer of the Dáil working for the House and it is the most important legislation in relation to the workings of this House to come before it for some time. I compliment the Minister on introducing it and I ask him to consider on Committee Stage the suggestion I made.

Mr. Spring

The Labour Party welcome this Bill and I compliment the Minister for Finance, despite his many pressing engagements, for having the time and initiative to introduce it. It is also fair to recognise the efforts of Deputy Gay Mitchell who, on many occasions, sought to have this Bill on the floor of the House and sought to strengthen and increase the powers of the Committee of Public Accounts. The Bill may not capture the imagination of the public but it is extremely important legislation concerned with the regulation on spending of State funds. It is also a Bill which concerns a very important office holder under our Constitution, which has not been recognised in the past. It is extremely important, for the management of public funds, that the office holder of Comptroller and Auditor General should have the support of the House and the Executive. He or she should also have the respect of the House in relation to the extremely important functions carried out by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

It is also incumbent on this House, during the passage of this Bill, to show due recognition to the responsibility which the Comptroller and Auditor General carries in regulation of accounting procedures dealing with spending public moneys. We welcome the Bill and I see it as a long overdue step in what perhaps will be a series of legislative measures and statutory instruments to improve accountability of public expenditure and taxation — ultimately for the Dáil — because that is where the ultimate responsibility lies.

The Comptroller and Auditor General investigates whether public moneys are spent properly and if taxes are being used for purposes for which they are supposed to be used. There is a huge amount of Government expenditure which needs to be rigorously addressed; obviously questions will arise from time to time as to whether money has been properly spent. If there are overruns — which happen quite frequently in public programmes — it is important to know where responsibility lies and how they can be avoided in future. The public have a right to such information. We have the right to examine and the Comptroller and Auditor General has the right to inform himself, the House and the public because our responsibility is to the public.

Traditionally, I feel strongly that the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General has not been adequately funded or resourced. It is extremely important that, in the context of new legislation which effectively will increase and expand the functions, adequate resources are provided. By such provision we can protect public moneys, which is also extremely important. The Comptroller and Auditor General could not be blamed in the past because the limited resources restricted the effectiveness of the office. However, the office — and office holders — carried out their functions to the best of their abilities despite limited resources.

A very recent example of the effectiveness of the office was the special report carried out in relation to the Carysfort property deals. They are well equipped to do that and it could certainly be more effective. I agree with the comments of Deputy Gay Mitchell, on broadening and expanding the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General and to the committees of this House. The Minister, in his speech, mentioned the three "Es" in terms of improving what can be done. I would say in terms of the economy, efficiency and effectiveness, there are areas which we can consider on Committee Stage where we could save much public funds, be it in terms of inquiries and inspections and in terms of the consultants and lawyers employed by the State. This is perhaps something that an expanded office of Comptroller and Auditor General could examine.

Ultimately this House must take responsibility and increase its functions, and the Members of this House must be serious about the issue of public accountability which, I feel, we have not been in the past. If we devoted more time to accountability and the administration of public moneys we would be doing a far better job. Obviously, this would require a strengthening of the powers of the committees of this House. It requires proper staffing which would include staff for chairpersons of committees to enable them to carry out their work. I have, at times, questioned how they find the time or the energy, given the demands on politicians in the normal course of their constituency duties, to do this work. If we are to be serious about this matter, we must provide the necessary staff and resources. Ultimately, we would save public moneys if we provide public moneys in the first instance to properly staff and equip committees and Members of this House to do the job we are elected to do.

The Bill proposes an extension of the Comptroller and Auditor General's competence and I welcome that. I also welcome the many areas which are listed in the Bill. One area which it appears to overlook completely, and to which the Minister for Finance might respond, is in relation to county enterprise boards. The Government have established some of them and have outlined a programme to establish others around the country. They will be disbursing large sums of public money and, in that respect, I ask the Minister where will the accountability lie for these new bodies? Is it possible that they could come under the control of the Comptroller and Auditor General? Local voluntary bodies of a non-commercial character should come under the scope of this legislation. Otherwise, questions will be asked in relation to how these boards are selected, how they disburse their funds and their critera in the disbursement of their funds. As yet, this House has not had an opportunity to discuss the role and function of those bodies. The Labour Party will be tabling an amendment on Committee Stage to the effect that the newly appointed county enterprise boards should be brought within the scope of this Bill.

The proposed extension to the authority, power and brief of the Comptroller and Auditor General, as outlined in the Bill, must be accompanied by obvious parallel legislation or by reform of this House. The role of the committee must be increased and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on State-sponsored Bodies and the Committee of Public Accounts are two which come to mind. They have been mentioned and it is noteworthy that the recommendations of the Committee of Public Accounts have received consideration. Perhaps some of those recommendations could be included on Committee Stage. It is important that the functions of these committees should dovetail with the functions of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

The basis of parliamentary democracy is the right of Members of this House to question the Executive on the spending of public money. That does not have to be done in a controversial manner but, at present, in the way this House functions, that is a limited right. In that respect the method of reporting to this House from the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General has been inadequate in the past. It is important that not only should reports be made but that this House would have an opportunity to study and debate those reports. Time must be provided for this either in Oireachtas committee or in this Chamber. Perhaps the Committee of Public Accounts is the appropriate vehicle for a thorough examination of the reports presented. There is little point in presenting reports if this House does not debate them and to act on them if action is required. Ultimately, the action must be taken by the Executive. Obviously, pressure can be brought to bear on the Executive by a committee reporting or by the report being debated in the House.

In that respect, it is necessary to update the law because, as the Minister said, most if not all the legislation in this area is pre-1937 Constitution and, therefore, needs to be updated. The Minister also mentioned that computer technology has introduced greater sophistication into the area of accounting. It is important that we adequately staff and resource those charged on behalf of the State to monitor the spending of public moneys. There are dangers in that respect because new and sophisticated methods have been used both here and around the world to commit computer crime. We must ensure that the new technology is not used to the disadvantage of the State. The fact that we are updating and modernising the law on a statutory basis is of importance and the reasons for this have been well outlined.

I regard as particularly important the extension of the scope of the Comptroller and Auditor General's role in relation to discretionary inspection, as outlined in section 8. The facility to inspect commercial harbour authorities and regional tourism organisations, where 50 per cent or more of their gross receipts is received directly from Departments or from central funds, is very important. It will give the Comptroller and Auditor General a new function in relation to monitoring public funds as far as necessary. He can also satisfy himself and, ultimately, the Dáil that these funds have been correctly appropriated.

Section 13 provides that the Comptroller and Auditor General may appoint suitably qualified independent persons to audit on behalf of the appropriation account for his own office and that is something the Minister might wish to examine. I have reservations about that and believe we may not be going down the correct road. Should it not be for the Dáil to appoint the auditor or the person who will audit on behalf of the Dáil? I am worried that there would be a danger of a cosy relationship developing. In saying that I am not attempting to question either the competence or the upstanding nature of the way this Office has been conducted but we should attempt to separate functions. Section 13 may give us an opportunity to consider an alternative method of appointing the person who will be auditing the Office. Perhaps that should be a function for the Dáil or for the Committee of Public Accounts.

Mr. G. Mitchell

That was the recommendation.

Mr. Spring

I thank the Deputy for that information. That recommendation should be considered again by the Minister for Finance and we will hopefully have an opportunity on Committee Stage of examining that. This issue concerns transparency and the more transparency we can have in relation to the spending of public moneys the better for everybody. There is a tendency here not to have transparency in terms of grants being disbursed, lottery funding or whatever. The more public accountability there is in relation to the spending of public moneys the better for everybody, including the Executive who award the grants, and those in public office who examine the basis on which they are given.

Section 24 allows the Minister to introduce the provisions of the Bill at different times, and I hope this will not result in any further delay. There has been much delay, not just through the fault of this Government but of previous Governments also, but I would hope that the provisions of the Bill will be brought into effect as quickly as possible. The legislation is long overdue. As I said earlier, let us bring in the resources that are necessary. Obviously there is a large section of work involved, a large transfer of responsibility, and in that respect I hope there are no further delays.

I welcome also the setting down in legislation of the duties of accounting officers in their role of giving evidence before the Committee of Public Accounts. That will be of assistance to both the accounting officers and to the Committee of Public Accounts. In the past there has been at times some confusion or difficulty in relation to spelling out the role of the accounting officer vis á-vis the function of the Committee of Public Accounts. This measure is in the interest of both the accounting officers and the Committee of Public Accounts.

As a party, we have argued for some time for the extension of the powers of legislators to question the Executive. The obvious way forward to bridge this gap in our democracy and to ensure proper accountability is to provide for the growth in powers of Dáil committees in line with, perhaps, the select committees of the House of Commons or, indeed, the greater powers of the US congressional committees. That provision in the Bill relates back to the willingness of the Executive to give more powers to the committees and, indeed, the willingness of members of the committees and the Members of this House to take on the extra responsibility, something that is long overdue.

The Bill has some weaknesses, though I welcome it in general. Perhaps we can address those weaknesses on Committee Stage. The Bill fails, for example, to address other measures which could increase even further the powers of the Comptroller and Auditor General. I would want to see the holder of that office having absolute power because at the end of the day there has to be maximum accountability. Ultimately the integrity and respect that the body politic, the State Departments, the local boards and, as I mentioned earlier, the county enterprise boards will have in the community can be substantiated through the powers of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the effectiveness of that Office.

The 1991 annual report of the Comptroller and Auditor General includes a section called project audits. These provide an extensive analysis, through investigation, of public expenditure programmes. I would like to see these project audits increased. This would require a commitment from the Minister and the Government to provide adequate resources in terms of staff. The provision of extra resources and staff in this area would be money well spent as it would put a spotlight, through investigation, on public expenditure programmes. There have been many programmes in the past which, for various reasons, have had overruns. It seems unfortunate that overruns will take place more easily in relation to funds in the public sector than in the private sector. We must question that situation — it must be brought to an end. Do these overruns occur because there is a more casual approach to the spending of public money by the various bodies involved than there would be if it were private sector money? There is an opportunity through the project audits of eliminating the overruns which have occurred in the past. It is extremely important that we in this House and the committees of this House make it plain to the people involved in the expenditure of public moneys that overruns will not be tol á-vis erated. The question must be asked as to whether people are ever taken to task in respect of overruns in public expenditure where there are public contracts involved, whether these relate to the building of harbours, to public buildings and so on? Is anybody ever brought to task? Accountability must feature in relation to the expending of public moneys. Hopefully, through the project audits the Comptroller and Auditor General will be able to maintain a more day-to-day inspection on the spending of public moneys and unlike the overruns, perhaps they can be stopped before public money is wasted. If the resources are not provided, if the House does not provide the facilities for something to be done when the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on overruns, then effectively the concept of accountability will be a waste of time and a further waste of public moneys. It is extremely important, as I said at the outset, that we provide the facility for reporting and for action because the bottom line in all of this is that action must be taken in areas where public moneys have been wasted. Therefore, resources are necessary and obviously they will be required if interim reports are to be published and brought before this House.

Parliamentary scrutiny in this country to date has been quite feeble. The development of the concept here compared with the majority of advanced democracies is, I believe, a long way behind. Perhaps it has been through the efforts of the Committee of Public Accounts and of Deputy Gay Mitchell, as their chairman, that we have made some advances in recent years but we still have a long way to go. This area can obviously be looked at in detail on Committee Stage.

The bottom line, from my point of view, is that confidence in our system depends on accountability and belief among the electorate that the political system will respond to meet those concerns. Above all, greater freedom of information and transparency in Government actions is absolutely vital. I am at a loss to understand why, down through the years, and this applies to all Governments including Governments I have participated in, we have been hesitant about transparency in public offices. If we can resolve, in the context of this Bill, to ensure that there is greater transparency, it will be the stimulus that our democracy and, perhaps, those in public life in this country need at a time when those in public life are under serious pressure.

Powerful interest groups can operate most effectively when there is a shroud of secrecy covering executive decisions. If the electorate ceases to believe in the powers of the Oireachtas to effectively check these interests, I believe we are talking about a crisis of legitimacy in our democratic institutions. Unfortunately, as I have said, there is growing evidence of alienation among the ordinary population, those outside the system who do not see that our work is always as effective as they would wish. This, perhaps, is a challenge for this House and for the democratic institutions. We have got to ensure that the public can see and have confidence in the work that is being done. We are talking about a great deal of money. It is public money and much of it is raised through taxes. The public are entitled to see that they are getting value for money and they should at all times have information as to how that money is spent.

We welcome this Bill. We have a duty to increase real accountability, and this Bill gives us an opportunity of doing so. The Bill can be improved and I am sure the Minister, being a fairly open-minded man, will participate on Committee Stage and take on board the suggestions that have been made concerning increases, powers and increased transparency in relation to the spending of public moneys. It is our duty and right as legislators to increase real accountability, to ensure there is access to information and to vigorously question as many areas of executive responsibility as possible.

Some of the recommendations of the Committee of Public Accounts have been taken on board. This Bill will be strengthened by the inclusion of even more of those recommendations. As the chairman of that committee, Deputy Gay Mitchell said, those recommendations are made in a non-political manner. I do not believe that any party representative on the Committee of Public Accounts has been seeking political advantage by virtue of those recommendations. They are recommendations made through the experience of that committee, and recommendations which I believe would benefit this House and the Office of Comptroller and Auditor General.

We will have an opportunity on Committee Stage of what I believe is a very valuable first effort at improving the legislation in this area and of strengthening the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Of all the constitutional Offices this is not a high profile one; nevertheless it is perhaps one of the more important in the State. It is important that the work of the Comptroller and Auditor General is done efficiently and effectively and that the public can be so assured.

Proinsias De Rossa

I should first of all like to speak about the Committee of Public Accounts. It is my opinion that that committee is an example that could well be followed by many committees in the House. Indeed, the Committee of Public Accounts should be examined in the light of improvements being made to the operation of other committees. The Committee of Public Accounts have always provided an example of public representatives taking their work seriously and addressing themselves to the fundamental interests of the citizens of this State by trying to ensure that there is accountability for money spent and transparency in relation to what is going on in what is, it has to be admitted a very complex and detailed area. There are no kudos to be had from the work of the Committee of Public Accounts. Much detailed effort and attention is required in the very complicated area of accounting and the relationship between public bodies and the House and the expenditure of public money.

Deputy Rabbitte is the Democratic Left representative on the Committee of Public Accounts and he hopes to be able to contribute to this debate before its conclusion. Obviously, Deputy Rabbitte will have much more insight than I do into the operations of that committee and into the operations of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Nevertheless, there are some general points that need to be made.

The Comptroller and Auditor General is the only constitutional officer nominated by this House — theoretically at least — appointed by the President and accountable directly to the House. He or she is not accountable directly to the Government and can be dismissed from office only by way of a motion of both Houses of the Oireachtas. Therefore in my view the Comptroller and Auditor General has a very important independent role in the expenditure of hard-earned taxpayers' money. Even though an important part of the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General is to identify waste or abuse, he or she should also seek to prevent the development of trends in the expenditure of public money that are wasteful or, as has happened in some instances, fraudulent.

An illustration of the importance of the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General is provided in the newspaper headlines that appeared following the most recent report of the Comptroller and Auditor General in which it was pointed out that some public contracting authorities failed to require tax clearance certificates before awarding contracts, the holding of taxes by sheriffs was a cause of concern, unpaid tax totals about £2.5 billion, a harbour survey mistake cost £1 million and so on.

From the point of view of public perception the Comptroller and Auditor General clearly has an important role. However, apart from the fact that it would probably be true to say that many Members of the House are unclear as to the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General, very few people outside of the House would be aware even of the existence of the office of Comptroller and Auditor General. If people are to have confidence in the operation of their democratic institutions they should be conscious of those institutions and of the checks and balances on the operations of those institutions.

I think there is a perception outside the House that we here are in some way independent operators who can do as we chose in a whole range of matters. It is only those of us who have been in the House for a while who recognise that that is far from the truth. There is a feeling that Members have the power to do something but we do not do it, that we overspend and even that we overpay ourselves. We need to address the question of how we should inform the public about what we do and the way in which there are controls exercised over what we do and over what the agencies that we establish do. There is an urgent need for civics education in our schools. Unless we reach a position where people know what our institutions are, how they operate, what the various arms of Government do and do not do and what they are entitled to do, it will be impossible for people to make a true judgment about whether we are acting in a proper or an improper way.

The operation of public companies and public agencies is extraordinarily complex. The list of bodies that the Comptroller and Auditor General is and will be entitled to examine numbers about 30 or 40. People outside the House may not even have heard of many of those bodies. Coiste and Asgard, for example, is, I am sure, an important body and I presume that it is connected with the Erskine Childers yacht, but who except those who are directly interested in that enterprise know that there is such a committee, that the committee are in receipt of public funds and that there is a body — the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General — that examines whether that committee are operating properly and spending taxpayers' money in a proper way?

The point I make is that we are dealing with a complex area and that it is extremely difficult for people to be conscious of what is going on if they do not even known about the bodies that are in existence and about the agencies that are established to control and examine their operations on behalf of the people. There is a need for transparency, for public accountability and for people to know and to be taught at an early age what precisely are the constituent parts of our democratic institutions.

The fact that the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General has to a large extent, up to the present at any rate, operated under fairly ancient legislation is a mark of the foresight of the originators of the legislation in 1866, that the basic principles that applied then could continue to be applied reasonably effectively right up till now. The designation of the office in our Constitution lends it an importance over and above virtually all other issues that may be dealt with in this House. That the Government considered it important enough to publish a White Paper on the background of the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General is indicative of the importance that more people outside the House be conscious of just what the office is and the way it works on their behalf.

The interrelationship between the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Committee of Public Accounts and the Dáil and the introduction of new legislation, which has been backed by a White Paper, provide a model of the way in which we should do our business in general. Too often in this House we deal with legislation in a very ad hoc manner. We respond to emergencies and produce legislation that is not thought through fully. I would suggest that the debate in the House of the past two weeks, now continuing in the Seanad, on the abortion issue is an example of that. More attention should have been paid to the issues, the production of a Green Paper outlining the different options to be followed by a White Paper and then legislation. That would create a much more informed and less heated debate about that issue.

The relationship between the Committee of Public Accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General is a good working relationship and it is not in any way confrontational. That is important, but it does not necessarily mean there is a cosy consensus involved. As Deputy G. Mitchell said, because differences of opinion on the committee do not necessarily break down on strict party divisions, that is not to deny that there are differences of opinion but they are based on understandings of the issues and not as a result of the operation of a party whip on any particular issue. It would be good to see that kind of development in other committees and even in relation to legislation on the floor of this House where people could stand up and deliver their views on any given issue, as indeed backbench Members of the Fianna Fáil Party have done in recent days on a fairly controversial issue in relation to Aer Lingus. That kind of stance should not be seen as in some way odd or as a threat to the Government but rather as an honest reflection of the views of Deputies on a particular issue. The question of how people vote at the end of the day on a particular issue is a separate matter. People should feel free to stand up in this House or in committees and deliver their views on issues as they see them in an honest and conscientious way without feeling they are undermining their party, their party leader or threatening the Government.

Deputy Spring expressed wonder at how members of the Committee of Public Accounts could do such an effective job despite their heavy workload both at constituency and Dáil levels. Presumably many of those members are also involved in local authorities. I made a submission on the question of Dáil reform some time ago in which I suggested we needed to give far more work to committees of this Dáil. The only effective way that could be done would be to review how the Dáil sits. I am not going down the simplistic road of suggesting the Dáil should sit six days a week 50 weeks of the year, but I suggest we rationalise the sittings and have effective committees meeting more often, but when the committees meet the Dáil should not meet. Two weeks of the month should be set aside for key committees to meet and do their business in an effective way without being interrupted by quorums, votes or running here and there so that the business that comes on the floor of this House is the work that has been teased out by committees in a rational and reasoned way.

We would be a far more democratic institution if we did that and got away from this constant haranguing of each other and indeed haranguing by the public that we sit only X number of days per week or X number of days per month. We will be seen as effective when we produce the goods, not on the basis of sitting until midnight or five day per week as opposed to four days per week. There is a genuine desire among most Members of this House to rationalise the way in which we do our work and to get away from the old conceptions of how parliaments operate. It is impossible, given the complexity of the work we have to deal with, for us to operate in the way in which parliaments operated in 1800 or before, when there was much more leisure time for those who had the opportunity to sit in a parliament at that time because the vast mass of people had no representatives in parliament.

Because of technology we have the capacity to inform the people much more quickly and easily. There is no reason the proceedings of this House and the proceedings of our committees should not be broadcast verbatim on a radio wavelength or on a public service television channel so that people can see what we do on a daily basis. Committees are constrained by a range of problems — for example, finance, staffing and lack of powers — which we should deal with.

The reason I am dwelling on this area and perhaps moving away from the main issue of the debate is that the Committee of Public Accounts and their relationship with the Comptroller and Auditor General is an example of what an effective committee can achieve if they do their work and if we give them the time, the resources and the freedom to do the work. The legislation is welcome and I support it in broad terms. I admit I have not studied the Bill in any great detail but it seems to be a progressive move in the right direction. Deputy Rabbitte will deal with the matter on Committee Stage.

There are a number of points I should like to raise. For example, why are commercial State bodies excluded from examination? I have read the section in the White Paper which makes the argument for and against including commercial State bodies. The arguments against include that it would be considered inappropriate in the case of bodies which are intended to enjoy a certain degree of autonomy and freedom from interference in their day-to-day operations. It goes on to say that they are already sufficiently accountable to parliament through the responsible Minister and the presentation of the annual report and accounts. They point out that the Joint Committee on Commercial State-sponsored Bodies "has wide-ranging terms of reference which help to ensure that these bodies are directly accountable to parliament".

The point I would make in relation to that and in relation to local authorities, which are also excluded, is that to a significant extent the expertise does not exist at local authority level to consider the reports of local authorities. From my reading of the reports of the Joint Committee on Commercial State-sponsored Bodies they rarely if ever deal with the question of financial accountability and how the company is being run. They are not a body that can examine on a regular basis every company; that is a task the Comptroller and Auditor General could do.

The case for not including commercial State-sponsored bodies is a weak one and should be reviewed. I welcome the fact that the Minister in his speech said it was not intended to include them now. I hope that means there will be an opportunity to review it. For example, if the Comptroller and Auditor General's mandate had covered bodies such as Green-core and Aer Lingus Holidays Limited, the debacle we saw there might have been avoided. Why should St. Angela's College of Home Economics, Lough Gill, County Sligo, come under the mandate of the Comptroller and Auditor General but not Aer Lingus or CIE? There seems to be an imbalance there which should be addressed. Obviously the job of the Comptroller and Auditor General should not be simply to ensure that every penny allocated for paper clips is not spent on staples, but to ensure that the financial interests of the country at large are protected. As I said, the fundamental point has to be value for hard-earned taxpayers' money. Indeed, in income tax terms, the PAYE sector pay something like 90 per cent of this money.

The provision in relation to the charging of fees by the Comptroller and Auditor General also gives me cause to pause. I do not have any objection in principle to that but I would not like to see the point being reached where he would be expected to become self-financing, as this would impose constraints on his work. I think it costs a little over £1 million to run his office at present. This is certainly money well spent in view of the huge amounts of money he has the task of overseeing and the extremely important role he plays on behalf of the public at large.

I also have questions on the sub-contracting-out of work. I wonder if this is a good idea. Unfortunately, as we have seen, many private firms have not exactly covered themselves in glory and several cases before the courts are alleging failure on the part of private accountants and auditors. This area needs to be approached with some caution.

It is proposed to bring the regional tourism organisations under the mandate of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Of course, these organisations are effectively being abolished by the implementation of the Government's proposals on county development committees. Will the county development committee come under the mandate of the Comptroller and Auditor General given that the regional tourism organisations are being abolished?

One of the most significant developments by the Comptroller and Auditor General has been the issuing of project audit reports. The report published in October 1990 on the business expansion scheme was an eye opener for many people. There had been constant complaints about the operation of that scheme. The project report undertaken by the Comptroller and Auditor General pointed out that while the scheme was good in its intention — that is, to create or maintain employment and improve the productive base of the economy by providing tax incentives to taxpayers to invest in companies experiencing difficulty in raising capital for start-up or expansion — the examination had revealed the absence of procedures which would be necessary in order to evaluate properly the success or otherwise of that scheme. The most notable weaknesses were that although the objectives of the scheme were well defined in general terms, in practice, the economic, financial and employment targets were not defined at all; no procedures were in place to obtain feedback on the extent to which the scheme was meeting its objectives in terms of job creation or maintenance; information was not being compiled to evaluate the extent to which the scheme had been successful in terms of attracting equity, etc; no attempt was made to identify the cost of jobs maintained or created; and there was no special policing of the scheme with regard to detecting a change of circumstances which might cause disqualification or withdrawal of relief.

That scheme was operated by the Department of Finance, the key Department of Government who exercise overall policing of every other Department, who rightly demand that every other Department keep their budgets under some kind of control and require all kinds of cost cutting in order for these Departments to qualify for whatever budget they may get in any succeeding years. Yet this scheme was found to be grossly and inadequately monitored by the Department of Finance. Despite the fact that that Department is accountable, through the Minister for Finance, to this House on a regular basis, this scheme operated for years with these glaring inadequacies.

The other issue brought to light by these project audit reports was that the Shannon Leasing Company, which operated under the business expansion scheme, received large tax exemptions but provided little employment. The example given was that this company received a tax exemption of £13 million but created only seven jobs. That is extraordinary and represents almost £2 million per job created. Obviously many Members in this House raised objections to the way the scheme was being operated but this practice went on. Eventually it was the Comptroller and Auditor General, and not the Minister for Finance or the parties in Opposition, who brought this practice to an end. This highlights the importance of the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

This is one of the occasions on which Members on all sides of the House can welcome legislation and hope that it strengthens the hand of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Hopefully the work of this House will be improved both as a result of the example of the Committee of Public Accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General and the way in which this legislation has been developed and backed up by a White Paper.

Mr. Roche

The remarks made by the previous speaker have somewhat modified my approach to this issue. As Deputy De Rossa correctly stated, the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee of Public Accounts are the twin pillars on which the financial oversight of the Oireachtas is supposed to be based. However, we do not really understand how they work; we do not devote enough time to how they work. In fact, we do not give enough publicity in general to committees, an issue I will deal with in further detail.

Like other speakers, I believe this Bill is particularly welcome. Like Deputy De Rossa and Deputy Spring, I commend the Minister on the approach he adopted in producing a White Paper on a somewhat obscure but very important area of public administration and following that by legislation. This is an important precedent to set on issues such as this. After all, under the Constitution the Dáil has very specific roles to play: it must make and break Government — we are all familiar with this — it must control the Government, ensure that the Government do not become involved in excesses and make the Government behave. It is also charged with making laws and, ultimately, with making war and peace. It also has the very important constitutional role of controlling the public purse, one of the longest-standing roles of any parliament in any form of democracy.

The Dáil's primary involvement in the finances of the State in terms of time consumed is concerned with the way we handle the Estimates and the financial provisions. The Dáil is also concerned to establish that money has been correctly used. Successive Dála have been very remiss in the way they have handled this part of their responsibility. There are two sides of the responsibility of financial oversight. Three institutions exist through which the Dáil and the State control the expenditure of public funds. The role of the accounting officer has not been dealt with in any detail in the debate but it is touched on in the Bill. There is also the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee. We had for a short period a fourth institutional arrangement, a Committee on Public Expenditure, which was allowed to fade away.

The role of the accounting officer is largely ignored but it has at least the same importance as the other two. The accounting officer is appointed by the Minister for Finance for each Department under the terms of the 1866 Act. The officer is responsible to the Dáil and answerable to the Dáil through the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee. Normally the accounting officer is the civil servant who heads a Department, but there are exceptions — for example, in the case of the Department of the Taoiseach. While the accounting officer can delegate responsibility for administration, the ultimate responsibility lies with him or her. The accounting officer presents the appropriation accounts of his Department to the Comptroller and Auditor General not later than 30 April in the year following the year to which the accounts relate. There is an issue of timetabling. The 1992 accounts will be due to be handed over in April next year. The accounting officer can be called on by the Comptroller and Auditor General to answer any matter arising from these accounts and in theory may be held personally responsible for making good any expenditure which is disallowed. It does not happen in practice.

Mr. G. Mitchell

It has happened twice.

Mr. Roche

There are many instances where in theory it could happen but in reality it does not. This is just as well for some accounting officers because they would be paying £40 a week for the rest of eternity in some cases.

The primacy of the accounting officer is illustrated in cases where the accounting officer and the Minister differ on the use of funds. It is a tribute to the people who drafted the original legislation that they saw a differentiation was needed. From my own experience as a civil servant I remember an occasion when an accounting officer and a Minister had a contre temps over who had primacy in this matter. Of course it was the accounting officer. The law provides very clearly that where the accounting officer and the Minister differ, the accounting officer must notify the Minister and suggest a joint consultation with the Department of Finance. Where the Minister insists on a contradictory course of action the accounting officer is required to receive these instructions in writing and then to inform the Department of Finance and the Comptroller and Auditor General. The accounting officer plays a very important role, although largely it is ignored. Within the Department the accounting officer has responsibility to ensure financial propriety at all times.

That is the role on which accounting officers focus, rather than ensuring efficiency and effectiveness.

This is where the other two pillars on which parliamentary control is based come into the matter. Like the accounting officers, the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General was established by the 1866 Act, which was updated in the early years of the State. Article 33 of the Constitution provides that the Comptroller and Auditor General should be appointed by the President on the nomination of the Dáil. It is interesting that the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General was continued into our law and given absolute primacy and constitutional status. The Comptroller and Auditor General reports to the Dáil and the independence of his office is assured by the provision of an impeachment process which permits his removal only in the most extraordinary cases of stated misbehaviour and only upon the vote of both Houses. He has great security of tenure. The drafters of our Constitution were as alert as the drafters of the original legislation to the very important role in terms of parliamentary democracy played by this officer.

The Comptroller and Auditor General had two distinct roles. The Comptroller role tends in discussions to be put on one side. As Auditor General he is charged with the task of auditing the accounts of Departments to ensure their accuracy, regularity, appropriateness of expenditure — that is, that there is an appropriation for each item of expenditure — and to examine any loss or waste. During the incumbency of the present holder of that office and under his predecessor there has been an interesting extension and expansion of the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General. This has largely happened without legislative support. That is why this Bill is so important. It provides a legislative basis for current practice.

Historically, Comptrollers and Auditors General tended to emphasise correctness and financial propriety rather than efficiency. Tribute must be paid to the existing Comptroller and Auditor General and to his immediate predecessor, as well as to the Public Accounts Committee and its current and past chairmen because it is only in recent years that the issue of efficiency has come into focus. The Comptroller and Auditor General has the responsibility to report to the Dáil on loss, waste or uneconomic expenditure; but he has had no specific function in regard to policy. He will not be able to investigate a project from a policy point of view. At present his responsibilities cover all issues from the Central Fund, the appropriation accounts of the Departments to certain stocks and stores accounts, the accounts of any moneys which are payable from the Central Fund and accounts of a limited number of State-sponsored bodies. I am mystified as to why some come under his aegis and some do not. He is also responsible for accounts where from time to time he is requested by the Minister for Finance. In performing his functions the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff have free access at all reasonable times to the books and accounts of the Departments. It may be tedious to relate all these things but it is important in the current context to see how these responsibilities have evolved and where this office is heading.

The Comptroller and Auditor General presents his report to the Dáil not later than 15 October. Between the receipt of the appropriation accounts at the end of April and 15 October the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff are charged with the task of examining all the appropriation accounts. There is clearly tension and pressure. When the law was set in place the State was very small and expenditure was very limited. In recent years the State has grown very dramatically and during the long period of growth the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General has not grown in a commensurate way. The staffing of his office has lagged behind the growth of the State and State institutions; yet there is this dreadfully narrow time span in which the Comptroller and Auditor General and subsequently the Committee of Public Accounts have to perform a vital task. If the Comptroller and Auditor General has any doubts regarding any items of expenditure he communicates these in writing to the accounting officer in the Department. Where the Comptroller and Auditor General has any doubts regarding an item which comes to his attention he need not of course wait until the appropriation accounts are available but can draw the matter to the attention of the Department prior to the arrival of the appropriation accounts on his desk.

Historically, the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General have drawn attention to cases where amounts granted by the Dáil had been exceeded. That is probably one of the most frequent issues reported on. Attention has also been drawn to cases where money received from the Department from sources other than the supply grant has not been properly used or properly accounted for. That is a fairly common error. A third area that one finds is where sums charged against a supply grant are not supported by proof of payment, that is, by way of the vouchering system. A fourth one we find is where payment against a supply grant has not been made within the period of the account. This is where accounting officers and Departments might find themselves with spare cash at the end of one year. Because of our budgetary system they do not want to be in that position, so they may bring forward a payment. Equally they may find themselves financially strapped and may put back payments. Finally, the Comptroller and Auditor General brings forward cases of loss, waste or uneconomical expenditure.

It is clear from the examples we find in the reports that the Comptroller and Auditor General does highlight a variety of inefficiencies and technical breaches each year. It is equally obvious that, historically, there are widespread inefficiencies in the accounting system and in the control systems that operate in Government Departments. The Comptroller and Auditor General, it has to be said, has a very small staff to perform the task on hand. The Comptroller and Auditor General is therefore clearly limited in the amount of space and the amount of cover that can be given to the accounts. Moreover his staff, although they are very talented people, are generally widely possessed only of in-house experience and tend not to be fully trained auditors. These factors, plus the need to concentrate on the administrative aspects of the audit and the sheer size of the task, have always limited the true effectiveness of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

While I acknowledge what has been done in recent years, what I am suggesting to the House is that there are very serious limitations on what can be done by the Comptroller and Auditor General under the present system of operations. If we are considering the effectiveness of the Dáil's financial oversight it is important to consider also the role of the Committee of Public Accounts in so far as it is inextricably interlinked with the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Deputy Mitchell dealt with the Committee of Public Accounts in some detail, but I think it is always difficult for a chairman to be objective and to praise his own committee to the extent that it deserves to be. I want to make up for any deficiencies that modesty has caused in his case. The committee is one of the most important committees in the Dáil. It plays a very central role. With the Comptroller and Auditor General it is one of the twin pillars of institutionalised parliamentary accountability. As Deputy De Rossa has said, the role played by the committee, as indeed the role played by the Comptroller and Auditor General, is not properly recognised.

As we know, the committee consists of Dáil Deputies only. It is traditionally chaired by a member of the Opposition. The committee is assisted by the Comptroller and Auditor General and bases its work on his report. It stands to the great credit of the Committee of Public Accounts — it has been mentioned here by several speakers — that the great tradition of the committee has been that it has never tended to operate on a partisan basis. That is so of all the committees in this House. That is something which demands to be said and put on the record. The fact that parliamentarians — Members of both Houses in the case of my own committee and Members of the Dáil in the case of Deputy Mitchell's committee — give so much of their time without seeking ever to take political advantage of it is something that is praiseworthy and should be acknowledged.

In examining the appropriation accounts of the Department the secretary, as the accounting officer, usually attends before the meetings of the committee. The Department of Finance are also usually represented. When the committee's examination of the appropriation accounts is completed they report to the Dáil. Here we come across a second major weakness. What does the Dáil do with the reports of the Committee of Public Accounts? It consigns them to oblivion because we do not act on them and we do not debate them. That is an issue of ongoing concern to me and to anybody who is even remotely interested in parliamentary democracy. It is a scandal which should be brought to an end.

The final reports and the verbatim reports are circulated to us all as Members and, largely, they are ignored. The committee, of course, also have certain powers, such as the powers to send for persons and papers; but, like other Dáil committees, they have no right to compel attendance and there is no ultimate right to subpoena the production of documents. In their reports the Committee of Public Accounts examine the financial rather than political aspects of public expenditure, and that is as it should be. The committee do not operate in a partisan way but in an objective way. In practice the committee's reports to the Dáil are not debated and that is an ongoing scandal. Instead of getting what I believe the Committee of Public Accounts should get, that is, specific time to have their views aired in this House and a specific ministerial response, what do we have? The recommendations of the committee are in effect dealt with administratively by the Department of Finance. In practice if the committee recommend a course of action the Minister for Finance will indicate to the committee in a document entitled “Minute of the Minister for Finance on the Report of the Committee of Public Accounts” the action to be taken on foot of the committee's recommendations. Where the Minister for Finance does not agree to follow the recommendations of the Committee of Public Accounts, the minutes will indicate why. In the following financial year the Committee of Public Accounts will consider the response of the Minister for Finance to it. If it is unhappy at the response, the only recourse open to the committee at that stage is to incorporate that in a report to the Dáil, which, like all other reports, will be ignored by the Dáil.

In reality then the Committee of Public Accounts are unlikely to resolve really controversial issues because of political nature of the issues and because the Dáil tends to ignore their operations.

The committee's effectiveness is also limited by a number of specific things which we should recognise here. There has been an increase in the number of meetings which the committee has had in recent years. On checking back to get a view of the operations of the activities of past Committees of Public Accounts I found that the current Committee of Public Accounts and their predecessor have met more frequently than any other Committee of Public Accounts in the history of the State. However, in spite of that, and because of the very nature of our activities as politicians, there is clearly always going to be a limit on the number of meetings that the committee can hold and the amount of time Members can devote to these meetings. While the Committee of Public Accounts can depend on the Comptroller and Auditor General, it cannot engage specialist consultants. It strikes me as bizarre that other committees of the House do have the power to engage consultants; but the Committee of Public Accounts, arguably one of the most important committees and a committee that could be directly related to the Constitution do not have that power. It can call witnesses, but it cannot compel witnesses. Deputy Mitchell has already referred to this.

The only criticism I have of the committee is that they do from time to time tend to over-focus on detail; but that is, I suppose, the nature of politics. It has also been mentioned from time to time by chairpersons that attendance at the committee may not always be spectacular. There will always be a couple of very energetic members of the committee. I know the committee are taking steps to deal administratively with nonattendance. The political nature of the committee can engender defensiveness, particularly from the Government side. That has to be acknowledged. The committee works post facto, often dealing with matters two or three years removed. That is in the nature of matters and is not under the control of the committee. There is no process whereby the Dáil must of necessity debate the reports of the committees and that is an extraordinary failing. The process whereby the Minister for Finance replies by note to the committees is a process of doubtful usefulness and effectiveness.

None of these points, I hasten to add, is intended to undermine the excellent work done by the Committee of Public Accounts. However, we must bear in mind that the committee have very specific limitations with which they must deal and which also tend to constrain them. If we are to reform the system of parliamentary oversight of public finances it is essential that we recognise its weaknesses and also that we address them. A strengthened Comptroller and Auditor General, for which the Bill provides, would make it doubly urgent to deal with the problems that the Committee of Public Accounts have had to face.

Let me now turn to deal with the provisions of the Bill against that background. As I said at the outset, the Bill is most welcome given that, for the first time in 130 years, a major effort is being made to improve and modernise one arm of parliamentary oversight of public finances. The changes relate primarily to the audit role of the Comptroller and Auditor General but, nonetheless, they are very welcome.

The Minister outlined this morning the main aims of the Bill, and they are praiseworthy. These are: to consolidate and modernise the existing legislative provisions; to make additional provision to extend the range and scope of the Comptroller and Auditor General's scrutiny of public expenditure and the management of public resources in line with modern requirements; to provide for more effective arrangements for reporting by the Comptroller and Auditor General and, finally, to deal with other incidental and miscellaneous issues.

While I welcome these aims I would like to deal with specific items addressed in the Bill. In addition to these aims, the Minister recognises the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General scru-effective auditor of public expenditure. This is particularly welcome because in a sense the legislation is following the practice adopted by recent Comptrollers and Auditors General.

The Minister recognises the changing nature of the audit process and the need to emphasise what he described as the three "Es"— economy, efficiency and effectiveness. Again, this is to be welcomed. Parliament should focus its attention on matters such as this more frequently. Unfortunately, because we tend to get involved in cat-calling and name-calling we are inclined to ignore this important work. It is welcome that the Minister recognises that efficiency, effectiveness and economy should be to the forefront in carrying out a modern audit. However this raises the question of the capacity of the Comptroller and Auditor General and his office to handle this challenge of value for money audits. Given that the great bulk of training provided for the staff — I have referred to this matter already — is in-house, there is a need to bring more outside expertise to bear on this area.

Notwithstanding some of the points made by Deputy De Rossa, we, in Ireland, are fortunate in having considerable strength in the accounting area. The quality of training provided at both university and professional level is regarded internationally as being exceptional. There is a great deal of talent in this field and the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee of Public Accounts should be empowered and funded to use this talent in addition to its existing, in-house talent.

In this regard I welcome section 16 (2) which will permit the Comptroller and Auditor General to appoint an agent to operate on behalf of the office. I hope the Comptroller and Auditor General will make use of this provision regularly as this would be one way of extending on an ad hoc basis the capacity of his office and of the Committee of Public Accounts.

I warmly welcome the extension of the Comptroller and Auditor General's purview to non-commercial State-sponsored bodies. Last week when we discussed the role of my own committee, the Joint Committee on Commercial State-sponsored Bodies and their special report on their terms of reference, I drew attention to the fact that, to my mind, the lack of a direct parliamentary oversight of the performance of non-commercial State-sponsored bodies is extraordinary. I am pleased that the Minister has addressed this matter both in the Bill and the White Paper.

In 1976, when the Dáil discussed the establishment of the Joint Committee on Commercial State-sponsored Bodies it was decided that the Oireachtas should not oversee non-commercial State-sponsored bodies. The argument put forward was that the non-commercial State-sponsored bodies were in effect extensions of their parent Department and, in reality, were budget-based expenditure agencies and that it would be inappropriate to handle them on the same basis as commercial State-sponsored bodies. I would not quibble with this view, that the non-commercial State-sponsored bodies are qualitatively different from commercial State-sponsored bodies, but that having been said it is remarkable that until this Bill was produced by the Minister non-commercial State-sponsored bodies were effectively outside the direct oversight of the Dáil. The decision to bring all non-commercial State-sponsored bodies under the purview of the Comptroller and Auditor General and I trust, by extension, of the Committee of Public Accounts, is particularly welcome.

I welcome another provision which has not been referred to in any of the other contributions made that is the provision contained in section 8 which deals with the right of inspection. I regard this as an important breakthrough. I acknowledge however that it is limited to specific bodies but it is very important that this power be given to the Comptroller and Auditor General. As he will now have this right of inspection in respect of certain bodies, I hope it will be extended to cover those parts of public administration where we consider there is a need for some form of parliamentary oversight.

It is critically important that the right of inspection be given to the Comptroller and Auditor General, given that direct intervention is clearly required in respect of specific events which present themselves from time to time, first, by an impartial and objective agency such as the Comptroller and Auditor General and, ultimately, by committees of the Dáil, be it the Joint Committee on Commercial State-sponsored Bodies in the case of commercial State bodies or, in the case of non-commercial State-sponsored bodies or State Departments, the Committee of Public Accounts.

Having praised the Bill in general terms, I would like to raise question marks in respect of two specific areas, the first of which is the issue of extending the Comptroller and Auditor General's remit to cover certain local authorities. This issue has been brought to my attention by one local government auditor. I consider that many of the points raised and the concerns expressed by the local government auditor in question require, at the minimum, a response and I should be grateful if the Minister would outline his views on the specific points raised.

The first question raised by the local government auditor concerning the issue of such extension was that of public accountability. This suggests that the accounts of such bodies are being audited and reported on publicly at present by qualified auditors with specific knowledge and expertise. He points out that local government audits are specialised and require unique statutory powers which have evolved through years of legislation and case law aimed at safeguarding public accountability. Local Government auditors wonder if this role is to be abandoned. The Minister made it clear in the House today that he was dealing only with a limited number of local authorities but the auditors are concerned that there will be an extension and that their role will be redundant.

The second question raised by the local government auditors concerns the professional staff. They point out that local government auditors are qualified accountants, that they are members of professional organisations and that the standard among local government auditors is very high. I tend to agree with them. They are qualified and do a fine job. I wonder therefore why it is necessary to make a change in the case of the vocational education committees and health boards. Each local government auditor is publicly responsible for their audit and they fulfil this responsibility well.

They also make the point that the issue of subsidiarity arises. As Members are aware, the subsidiarity doctrine has been discussed widely not only on this side of the water but elsewhere in recent times and has been subject to all sorts of bizzare interpretations but the general interpetation is that one does not give responsibility to a high public authority if that responsibility can be performed by a lower public authority within the community itself. It seems, given their background and experience and having regard to the fact that they are located around the country, that local government auditors would best serve the local community, democracy and local traditions.

In fact, I would go a step further. One of the deficiencies in the local government audit at present is that it is rather static. I have always argued — I discussed this matter with the Minister and his predecessor — that there is need for a mobile local effectiveness audit which could be called on by the elected members of a local authority to ensure that the estimates presented to them represent the best deal that can be got for the taxpayers in the local area, that the expenditure procedures in the local authority are efficient and, more importantly, that at the end of the day we get value for every pound spent.

I am sure that a centralised unit in Dublin would be more efficient in operating the local government audit. Arguably it could be more costly than the present arrangement. It may be that when the new arrangements come into operation the Comptroller and Auditor General will appoint some of the existing local government auditors as his agent to carry out the initial audit of the vocational education committees or the health boards. Local government auditors pointed out that there are aspects of the value for money audit which have always been part of their standard procedure and they do not seem to get credit for it. They also point out that a lack of resources, mainly staffing, has prevented them from undertaking value for money audits on a structured basis. Recognising that this is the case I suggested to the present Minister, and previous Ministers for the Environment, that there is need for a mobile audit in the local authority area that can be called in by the elected members to perform specific tasks relating to effectiveness, efficiency and value for money.

Local authority auditors point out that in the past arrears of unaudited accounts were an inhibiting factor in local government audits but that — this is reasonable — in recent years due to the great efforts of auditors in spite of staff shortages the audits are up to date and the annual audits have now become the norm. The auditors query some of the suggestions made in the special report published by the Committee of Public Accounts in relation to the way the audit is carried out in vocational education committees and health boards. In general, local government auditors have done a very good job. I hope the Minister will address some of the issues an concerns exercising the minds of local government auditors at present.

Local government auditors suggest that a special report of the Committee of Public Accounts recommended that a distinction be made between mainline local authorities and others such as health boards and vocational education committees — that is effectively done in the Bill — on the grounds that the former are directly elected by the public whereas the latter are not so elected. The rationale behind this recommendation appears to the local government auditors, and to me, to be quite unreasonable in that the health boards and vocational education committees are composed of councillors nominated by local authorities and representatives of other local interests. Their origins are steeped in local government tradition and the board members aspire to serve the public locally. In turn, the public perceive the boards as being similar to county councils. Therefore, it is more difficult to understand the distinction made in the Bill.

The auditors point out that it appears unreasonable to draw a distinction on the basis of funding. As they suggest, funding arrangements are volatile and entirely dependent on economic circumstances and Government policy. The fact that local authorities invested their resources in local health services for more than a century prior to the present arrangement should not be lost sight of. The auditors suggest that it is noteworthy that in the UK responsibility for the audit of health authorities, formerly that of the DHSS audits section, has recently been transferred to the audit commission, the UK equivalent of our local government audit service. They suggest, therefore, that the moves we are contemplating would be a step in the opposite direction.

The special report of the Committee of Public Accounts identifies a need to improve the matter of reporting to the Dáil on local government expenditure other than the examination by the local government auditors. Prior to the issue of that report local government auditors made a comprehensive submission to the inter-departmental committee set up to review the local government audit service. This submission included a recommendation that an annual report be made to the Government by the head of the audit service, which would be laid before the Dáil.

The main features of such a report suggested by the local government auditors were as follows: first, an account of the activity of the services in the year being reported on; second, audits conducted and reported on; third, an analysis of the main shortcomings highlighted by the auditors; fourth, targets for the following year and, finally, resource allocation, staff revision and a general financial report on the audit service. Local government auditors feel that this measure would serve the dual purpose of accounting to the Dáil for local authority expenditure while preserving the present accountability of local authorities to the local population. It is worthwhile in this regard to draw attention to a recent extract from a report of the Scottish Audit Commission which states:

Although parliament provides the funds for a large portion of local authority expenditure, it does so out of taxes levied upon the public and we consider therefore that public rather than parliamentary accountability is of the greatest importance.

By implication the suggestion of the audit commission was that accountability at local level was best achieved through local auditors.

I would like to make a final point concerning the Committee of Public Accounts. With the extension of the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General the Dáil must take immediate steps to provide a proper level of support for the Committee of Public Accounts. I agree with other speakers that an improvement here would in the long term save money. I outlined to the Dáil last week that there would have been an earlier revelation that all was not well in the Irish Sugar Company had it not been for the fact that the relevant Oireachtas committee were deflected from their task and did not have sufficient resources to complete their task in time. It is vital that the Committee of Public Accounts be given the necessary resources to fulfil their task. It is wrong that members of that extremely important committee do not have the staff support necessary to compensate for the time they spent on that committee. It is unacceptable that the Oireachtas does not recognise the amount of time Members of the Oireachtas must spend on parliamentary committees if the committess are to be worthwhile.

I am chairman of another committee — I paid tribute to my committee colleagues here last week — and we spend an endless amount of time teasing out reports but we get no recognition for that. For every hour we spend on that work we spend on hour less on our constituency work unless we work longer hours, and that is what we are doing. It is unreasonable to expect members of committees to continue, without recognition and support, to devote an increasing amount of time to committee work.

It is important that the Committee of Public Accounts, and other committees, have the right to compel witnesses to appear before them — I made this point last Friday. There is nothing as frustrating as getting half way through a report and finding it impossible to compel a witness to appear before the committee to answer questions. It makes a farce of the parliamentary oversight procedure. If such a procedure is to be satisfactory we should address that matter.

Committees should also have the right to subpoena all documents. It is very frustrating and wrong in a parliamentary democracy that even in the most important cases where documents may be confidential, parliamentary committees cannot have access to them. It is important that committees have the right to request time in the Dáil for discussion of reports. There is no point in producing reports of committees unless the Dáil is willing to debate them. The Minister and the Government indicated that the knotty issues of privilege of witnesses and the sub judice rule are being addressed and this is welcome — the Minister refers specifically to this matter in the White Paper. The resolution of these two issues is vital if we are to have a meaningful committee system and if the Committee of Public Accounts are to fulfil their expanded task.

There is one other area that needs to be addressed — this point was made by Deputy De Rossa. At present it is not possible for radio or television transmissions to take place directly from Dáil committees. As we all realise, publicity is the life-blood of politics. It is vital that the public are aware of the work of committees and accept that the Dáil is looking after their interests. I cannot understand why cameras and microphones are excluded from the committee rooms. After all, it is a constitutional principle that the work of the Dáil is done in public and that the public have access to it. We recognised that when we allowed television cameras and radio into the House and the same should now be done in relation to parliamentary committees.

With those quibbles — and they are really no more than quibbles — I commend this Bill to the House. It is marvellous legislation. The Minister and his officials should be commended on the Bill and I am sure it will have an easy passage through the House.

Mr. Cullimore

I too compliment the Minister for introducing the Bill. As a member of the Committee of Public Accounts I am very conscious of the committee's role. Much of our work has been centred on accounting procedure, but more and more we are moving in the direction of ensuring that the Government — and indeed Departments — are getting value for money. I should like to compliment all those involved in the Committee of Public Accounts, particularly the chairman, Deputy Gay Mitchell, who has been an excellent chairman and very objective in his approach. Deputy Spring said this morning that the committee are non-political, which is true, and much of the good work has been done because the emphasis has been on not involving the committee in politics.

I also compliment not only the staff of the committee but all departmental officials and the secretaries of the various Departments who have appeared before the committee. They were very forthright in answering questions which at times were very difficult. I note that there are representatives of the Department of Finance in the House and I acknowledge the role they have played; they have been very helpful to all members of the committee.

Many commercial firms have slogans on the bottom of their notepaper advertising their products and services. I should like to see the slogan "Never forget that the buck stops with the taxpayer" on the bottom of notepaper used by Government Departments and State-sponsored bodies. To ensure that the taxpayer does not get an unfair bill it is vital that there are systems of public accountability which match the way we spend money. It is vital to have a system which will show that early projections do not match the invoices presented at the end.

The most notorious example is the Beef Tribunal. Nobody asked the general public if they wanted to spend over £40 million to examine the workings of export credit insurance. One political party, in an effort to damage the credibility of their partner in Government, decided to splurge taxpayers' money on this tribunal. Nobody knows what the final costs will be but the indications are that the direct costs will be well in excess of £40 million. Many lawyers will do very well out of the tribunal. I am merely talking about direct costs. How do we cost the time of perhaps 20 officials of the Department of Agriculture who have been taken off their normal important duties to feed this judicial animal? I acknowledge the role of the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture and Food, Deputy Browne, in the workings of the Department. However, as agriculture is experiencing great difficulties, he and the Department could do with 20 extra officials. If the end result of the tribunal meant that there would be a benefit to the unemployed in my constituency I would approve. There is a very high level of unemployment in all constituencies. What do the unemployed say about the tribunal? Have they said that perhaps the Committee of Public Accounts are the vehicle which should have examined the allegations being examined by the Beef Tribunal? After all, they elected us as their representatives to ensure that proper accounting procedures are maintained and proper value for money received on their behalf.

If the result of the tribunal meant that the hard-pressed farmers of my constituency would benefit I would say that the expense of the tribunal was worth it. If it meant that people in my constituency in dire need of housing would benefit I would approve of the expense. It is significant that the Minister introduced this Bill which will give more powers to the Committee of Public Accounts. Like many of my colleagues, I maintain that the allegations made against various Members of this House in the Beef Tribunal should have been investigated by the Committee of Public Accounts.

Many people are unemployed, the businesses of others have failed, they do not have houses and cannot see a prospect of jobs for their children. They must be asking whether the Houses of the Oireachtas should be accountable in relation to the allegations made. Is it right that lawyers and civil servants should spend their time assessing these allegations while Members of this House have access to records and have the right and power to summon people before various committees, particularly the Committee of Public Accounts, to assess these charges? I do not believe that anything will come out of this inquiry which will justify its cost.

In future if allegations are made and there are calls by political parties to spend £40 million of taxpayers' money on examining allegations, the proper vehicle for doing so is the Committee of Public Accounts. After all, we are paid to ensure policies are implemented and that the public are getting value for money. I do not believe that any Member of the House could give me an example of an inquiry which has provided benefits to unemployed or homeless people, hard-pressed farmers and business people. All that is clear at this stage is that the amount the tribunal was supposed to cost was grossly underestimated. The tribunal is not the only thing which will cost the taxpayer a lot more than originally expected. The Garda radio network was supposed to cost in the region of £3 million or £5 million but it will cost something closer to £30 million. This was examined by the Committee of Public Accounts and brought to the attention of this House by that committee. However, we did not have the resources necessary to address this problem in a more comprehensive manner. There is an urgent need to allocate specific resources for members of the Committee of Public Accounts to ensure that they can identify any anomalies in the accounting procedures of any Department and, also, ensure that the various Departments get value for money.

The Garda radio network was to have cost between £3 and £5 million but the cost to the taxpayer was close to £30 million. That is not acceptable to the public or to the members of this House. The planning and management of that project was not good enough and we, as public representatives, should have ensured that the Committee of Public Accounts had the necessary resources to investigate and highlight this problem at an earlier stage, rather than when it was too late. That occurred at a time when in our constituencies there is a shortage of housing and a lack of jobs. It is frightening that a Government Department overspent by £26 million on a Garda radio network, and that we, as Members of this House, allowed that to happen. The Minister's proposal to extend the powers of the Committee of Public Accounts should, in future, ensure that such anomalies do not arise.

Another example of a cost overrun or wasteful expenditure examined by the Committee of Public Accounts is the £300,000 spent on prison design fees or plans which were not used. How could a business succeed if it spent more than £300,000 on plans that are never used? How could any small industry or shopkeeper justify spending such an amount on plans that are not used? A sum of £750,000 was paid for the rent and rates of a building under-utilised by Telecom Éireann over a four year period. That is a huge sum yet when we approach Ministers seeking money for the mentally handicapped or housing, we are told it is not available. We do not have the facilities to examine Departmental budgets. I hope this Bill will resolve this problem.

The catalogue of overspending in various Departments goes on. What does this indicate? It indicates that we must have a fiscal policy service second to none here. We must have the State's accounting procedures as up-to-date as possible. Every financial institution here has had to up-date their preventive measures against fraud in the past few years. As fraud has become high tech., so also must fraud prevention become high tech. However, there is much more at issue here than fraud. There is the problem of waste and inefficiency. If we are to prevent the waste of taxpayers money we must have an up-to-date system and not depend on one that has existed for more than 100 years. The Comptroller and Auditor General has a key role to play in the system of public accountability. He is the key independent assurance to the Dáil that public money is being properly spent. Now is the time to expand the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General. It is also the right time to expand the role of the Committee of Public Accounts. Nobody can be in any doubt that we require a complete and up-to-date audit programme.

Too often when we discuss public finances, we talk about constraints, as if the amount of money available was all that mattered. That is not true. The value we obtain for money is crucially important. Just as businesses have to eliminate waste, the Government must eliminate the waste of taxpayers' money. Just as businesses demand value for money, so the Government must demand value for taxpayers' money. Just as good businesses introduce flexibility and react quickly to new demands and new challenges without using money inefficiently, so the Government must adapt in the same cost-effective way. A modern, properly supported Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General is a vital requirement now.

I hope that the proposals before the Dáil today will ensure that proper accounting procedures are maintained and that we, as representatives of the people, ensure that our constituents get value for money.

Mr. Briscoe

I love an audience but, unfortunately, I do not have one today. I will not take up too much time as I understand Deputy Lawlor wishes to contribute to this debate.

As one who served on the Committee of Public Accounts some years ago, I recognise the value of the work of the Comptroller and Auditor General. However, many people may well be unaware of his investigative powers. Some years ago when I was a member of the committee, a Secretary of a particular Department refused to produce a file to the Comptroller and Auditor General for examination by him. The committee was told by the Comptroller and Auditor General that he was satisfied that to his knowledge the file in question did not contain anything of a security nature, despite the fact that it was a Department of Justice file. The committee had to go before the House and obtain an order of the House that the file be produced to the Comptroller and Auditor General, which it was. He was later satisfied to report to the Committee of Public Accounts that, in his view, there was nothing in the file which was of a security nature and which he should not have seen. However, the same does not apply in other countries. I remember that at the time it was pointed out that in the United States during the development of the Manhattan Project, which was the development of the atomic bomb, the Vice-President was not even aware of the work being carried on but the Comptroller and Auditor General of the United States had knowledge of this development, and the amount of money being spent on it.

It is no harm for the public to realise the extent of the power of the Comptroller and Auditor General, bestowed on him by the State, to protect the interests of taxpayers. There have been many cases illustrated over the years by the Comptroller and Auditor General of excessive expenditure. In years past when the Office of Public Works undertook refurbishment work, equipment was hired rather than purchased. The project ran beyond the time limit for completion.

It would have cost less if the Office of Public Works had purchased the equipment instead of hiring it. This overspending is indicative of the need for accountability of expenditure in respect of State institutions.

The Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General can only work efficiently if it is properly staffed. I urge the Minister to ensure that staff are appointed to the office to enable the Comptroller and Auditor General to investigate the expenditure of public sector moneys. A great deal of taxpayers money is spent in the public sector covering many areas. I am pleased that extra responsibility is being given to the Comptroller and Auditor General in recognition of the amount of work that needs to be done.

The Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts has always been a member of the main Opposition party of the day. I must commend my colleague, Deputy Gay Mitchell, for the way he has chaired that committee.

At times it would have been politically advantageous for him to make political comments in relation to his duties but he did not do this. He has not allowed himself, in his position as chairman of that committee, to be used in that manner by his own party or others. The Committee of Public Accounts, and this House, are fortunate in having a man of Deputy Gay Mitchell's abilities as Chairman. He is a Deputy from my constituency and I commend him for his work on that committee.

Most of the matters of concern to us were raised by Deputy Cullimore and others. I commend the work of the Comptroller and Auditor General. I recognised the amount of work he has to do and that more staff are needed to carry out the duties of his office, to investigate the wide area of public expenditure. I am glad I had an opportunity to contribute to this debate.

Mr. Lawlor

I welcome the Bill. It is long overdue. As Deputy Briscoe said, we have seen over the years, particularly in recent years, the need to extend the powers of the Comptroller and Auditor General. This Bill goes a long way towards doing that.

The Committee of Public Accounts highlighted some of the major overspends. The Minister for Finance recognises that the annual allocation of funds often results in Government Departments being placed in financial difficulties. They may have embarked on the first phase of a five, six or ten phase project, as Deputy Cullimore said. They may have embarked on design or other aspects of a project and may subsequently find that the capital expenditure to fund this work is not forthcoming. They may have incurred excessive costs on aspects of projects that will be wasted and these costs may become the basis of serious criticism. That happened in many areas, including my constituency. In relation to a prison, there was expenditure on design and other work but the project did not proceed. This is not an accountability matter, it is one of managing our finances from central Government in co-operation with other Government Departments. There is a need for a three to five year capital programme that would allow for greater medium to long term financial planning and would minimise the difficulties faced by Government Departments as a result of studies undertaken by the Comptroller and Auditor General or by the Committee of Public Accounts highlighting substantial costs incurred with no gain to the State or the taxpayer.

The main burden of tax is borne by the PAYE sector and greater accountability of how this money is spent is necessary. Those taxpayers have their incomes assessed weekly or monthly and they must contribute an exact amount in tax. The State has the power to extract taxes from their income. Those taxpayers see the finances of the country managed in a different way, not involving the same transparency or accountability that is evident in the collection of their taxes. They expect that, we as legislators, should vigorously support this Bill and have it dealt with as quickly as possible to ensure that finance is properly monitored.

In the Bill the Minister has not taken on board the need to scrutinise the commercial State-sponsored bodies and the local authorities. I do not believe it is sufficient that the State companies should only be scrutinised by the responsible Department or the Oireachtas Joint Committee to whom they report. The Committee of Public Accounts can only find the stable after the horse has bolted and that is not sufficient. Greater accountability of the management of the nation's affairs is necessary. On Committee Stage we should consider an inter-linking, or some expansion of the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General to oversee the operations of State companies.

In relation to local authorities, there is a very substantial annual outlay of funds. They are not as effectively dispersed as they might be. There is greater potential for job creation and productivity in that area. It should come under the scrutiny of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The potential for job creation by local authorities is being considered by the Committee on Employment. There is need for action when one considers the finances that were being voted annually and there is need for accountability. The provisions of the Bill should be extended to take in local authorities. I do not know why a two dimensional arrangement is being entered into. I do not understand why it cannot be dealt with under one heading or why the Department of Finance or the Minister on Committee Stage cannot take that responsibility on board.

I welcome the fact that health boards and educational institutions will be subject to the scrutiny of the Comptroller and Auditor General and will, therefore, be accountable to the Committee of Public Accounts. That is desirable. The sums of money that are voted annually under various headings to those bodies are very substantial. Those institutions have a very important role to play in society and they should be accountable.

Another move in that direction, the declaration of interests of Members of the House, is welcome. The public will appreciate that there must be transparency and that the political system, Government Departments and various other members of the community charged with the disbursement of taxpayers' funds should be accountable.

Debate adjourned.