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The chair of the Public Accounts Committee has slammed the reported €660,000 spend by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council on restoring a wall at Marlay Park, saying the expenditure raises questions about oversight of public funds.
Sinn Féin TD for Wicklow and Chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), John Brady, made the comments in a statement following reports that the local authority had spent the money on the restoration project.
Brady said the issue highlighted wider concerns about the ability of State bodies to scrutinise public spending, claiming that current arrangements leave some publicly funded organisations outside the remit of the Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG).
The PAC chair said recent controversies involving public expenditure had left people questioning how certain spending decisions were approved.
“Households, workers and families have been rightly outraged by the countless recent examples of wasteful spending of taxpayers’ money,” Brady said.
“Whether it be financial scandals at RTÉ, runaway ICT costs, security huts, bike shelters, the recent revelation that €660,000 has been spent on a wall in Marlay Park, the scrapped €50 million Irish Rail project, or massive pay increases for the CEOs of commercial semi-state bodies, the list goes on and on.”
Brady said these cases had raised questions about how public money is monitored.
“These examples leave the public asking how such expenditure can be justified and why there is so little effective oversight of how taxpayers’ money is spent,” he said.
“It again highlights the urgent need to strengthen how this State oversees the spending of public funds.”
The Wicklow TD also pointed to the current limits on the C&AG’s powers, particularly in relation to local authorities.
“Our statutory framework for the C&AG is outdated and inhibits the ability of the PAC to fully play its role as watchdog on public spending,” Brady said.
“This is demonstrated by the fact that local authorities, funded to the tune of billions of euros every year, are outside of the scope of the C&AG.”
“That’s billions of public money, with no effective oversight.”
Brady said the PAC had begun a review of its remit to examine how scrutiny of public spending could be expanded.
“As Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, I have initiated a formal review of the Committee’s remit with a view to broadening its scope and embedding a genuine ‘follow the money’ principle in how we scrutinise public expenditure,” he said.
“A dedicated working group has been established to examine how this can be achieved, and as part of that process we are examining international best practice, engaging with other parliaments, and considering how comparable jurisdictions ensure that all public money is subject to effective scrutiny.”
He added that some bodies receiving public funding currently appear before the PAC on a voluntary basis because they are outside its statutory remit.
“Many bodies receiving massive amounts of public funding only appear before the PAC on a voluntary basis because they fall outside our statutory remit,” Brady said.
“We have seen this recently with organisations such as the Peter McVerry Trust and in relation to an upcoming meeting with Irish Rail to deal with the scrapped €50 million Traffic Management System.
“This is completely unsatisfactory.”
Brady said he wanted local authorities and commercial semi-state bodies to come within the audit remit of the C&AG.
“All bodies in receipt of public funds, including local authorities and commercial semi-state entities, should fall fully under the audit remit of the C&AG, and in turn the scrutiny of the PAC,” he said.
“There should be no gaps in accountability where significant amounts of taxpayers’ money is at stake.”
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