A senior politician has said there was no respect for taxpayer money by public servants after it was revealed that a security hut at an entrance to Government Buildings cost more than €1.4 million.
The Office for Public Works (OPW) has also come under recent scrutiny for spending €336,000 on a glass-covered bike shelter on the grounds of Leinster House in Dublin.
John Conlon, chairman of the OPW, told the Oireachtas Finance Committee on Wednesday that while the work on the security hut involved “fairly significant costs”, the project included a mechanical and electrical system that is connected to the Government Buildings campus.
However, John McGuinness, the chair of the Oireachtas Finance Committee, said the system has failed people and no responsibility is taken when something goes wrong.
Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show, the Fianna Fáil TD said there needed to be political leadership in each department and responsibility should be taken by public servants about spending.
Mr McGuinness said one way to do that was to increase the powers of the Comptroller General and Oireachtas committees, such as the Public Accounts Committee.
The Comptroller General should audit all public spending, otherwise “we will have error after error”, Mr McGuinness said.
He said there would have to be an examination about why the OPW decided to deliver the bike shed project at a cost of €350,000 and “why no one said stop?”
The €1.4 million cost of the security hut at Leinster House should also be questioned, he said.
“I have no doubt that there are security issues and the need for security technology and so on, in that hut. But you would question the €1.4 million spend and whether it was value for money or not.
“I believe that the systems behind the delivery of these projects have failed the people, have failed the country and the different departments that spent that money. I have no doubt that you could have done the job much cheaper, much more efficiently and still dealt with the problems that you had in the first place.”
He added: “There seems to be no respect for taxpayers’ money. And there seems to be no responsibility taken when something goes wrong and that we can't allow that to continue.”
The Comptroller General should be the person to audit public spending, he said. If there is an error then there should be an obligation to correct that error.
“In terms of public scrutiny, all of this should be done by a far more powerful public accounts committee. But separate from that, you do need to have a civil and public service that is conscious of the need to protect taxpayers money. And that continues to evolve.”
The issue could be a problem for the Government and TDs during the upcoming election, he said.
“It's a problem for all of the parties now because they seem to have had years of being in power without introducing the reforms that are necessary to prepare the country for the spending of the type of monies that we have now and preparing for the future.
“When are we going to learn? When are they going to stop circling the wagons? Give value for money. Put their hand up when they're wrong and then have a better system of governance, transparency and so on.”
