14 Mar 2012, 17:28
The costs of the Mahon Tribunal, investment in water services and the unwinding of loans taken out by local authorities with the Housing Finance Agency in respect of development land that is not now required will be among the key issues to be dealt with by the PAC when it meets with the Secretary General at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government tomorrow, 15th March.
Chairman of the Committee, John McGuinness said that while the cost of the Tribunal to the end of 2011 was in the region of €96.5 million, a key issue will be the decision of the Tribunal on third party entitlement to costs.
Deputy McGuinness said: “The Tribunal has estimated that the final cost of its work may be between €213m and €243m, including third party costs of €111m to €141m. No provision has been made in the accounts of the Department nor is there a note signifying a contingent liability in respect of these costs. The Committee will want to know the basis of these estimates, the likely timeframe in which the taxpayer will have to meet these costs and the extent to which many more lawyers will become millionaires as a result of the work of this Tribunal that was appointed 15 years ago\".
While significant investment has been made in our water services – €5.2 billion between 2000 and 2010 – and water quality indicators have shown ongoing improvement, the C&AG report raised issues around the loss of treated water.
Deputy McGuinness said: “The figures for unaccounted for water as outlined in the C&AG Report and in the update from the Department make for grim reading. We are twice the OECD average when it comes to having unaccounted for water. Why are the figures so bad?
What steps need to be taken by local authorities in order to improve performance?”
The unwinding of the local authority debts to the Housing Finance Agency will also be dealt with by the Committee.
“The Housing Finance Agency has advanced loans to local authorities to the value of €4.36 billion. Of this a sum of almost €500 million relates to advances made by the Housing Finance Agency to local authorities to purchase land for building social and affordable houses that will not now be used for its intended purpose. Because land was purchased during the boom at inflated prices and because of the economic collapse, local authorities now own large stocks of land which will not be used and they cannot pay back the HFA. We will be asking the Department to explain the process of unwinding the loans on the books of the local authorities,” said Deputy McGuinness.
Geraldine Tallon, Secretary General, at the Department and officials will attend the PAC meeting at 10am tomorrow, Thursday, 15th March in Committee Room 1, Leinster House 2000.
Committee proceedings can be followed live at: http://bit.ly/24YmPI
Ends
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Houses of the Oireachtas,
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Committee of Public Accounts
Membership
John McGuinness (Chairman)
Kieran O’Donnell (Vice Chairman)
Paul J Connaughton,
John Deasy,
Paschal Donohoe,
Anne Ferris,
Simon Harris,
Michael McCarthy,
Mary Lou McDonald,
Sean Fleming,
Eoghan Murphy,
Derek Nolan,
Shane Ross