Report highlights waste of taxpayers' money

The wasteful expenditure of taxpayers’ money has reached a new level with the current Government, it was claimed today.

Phil Hogan, a Fine Gael TD, accused the current Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrat coalition Government of having a reckless attitude towards State money.

After the annual report of the Comptroller and Auditor General highlighted the waste of millions of euros of taxpayers’ money, the opposition politician said: “It has been brought to a new level with this particular Government, we have a reckless attitude towards taxpayers’ money.”

Mr Hogan added: “We should make ministers’ more accountable in the system in the Oireachtas, more accountable for their estimates.”

Minister for Tourism John O’Donoghue said in every report from the Comptroller and Auditor General there were examples of ways things could be administered better.

“This has been the case in previous governments, including governments in which Phil Hogan’s party was involved,” Mr O’Donoghue said.

Mr Hogan said enquiries into public expenditure should be made beforehand rather than after the money was spent.

“That is the difficulty we have with the CAG’s report, there is a lot of over-expenditure and wasteful expenditure but unfortunately the money is now spent,” the Carlow/Kilkenny TD told RTE Radio.

“I think there is a challenge to the Oireachtas to look at how we can break the cycle of wasteful expenditure that has been brought to a new level by this Government, by investigating all the various projects and programmes well in advance of the project being spent.”

Mr Hogan said it was originally calculated that €127m would be spent on the Government’s Special Savings Incentive Accounts scheme to help people save, but the amount has now risen to €1.75bn.

However, Mr O’Donoghue said Government expenditure had currently reached €40bn on the provision of public services and infrastructure.

“Naturally we should always be striving to improve the administration and control by the Departments, of taxpayers money. In that context the CAG must also be looked at extremely carefully in terms of his report,” Mr O’Donoghue said.

“I do have to say since 1997 we have managed the economy is such a way as to yield, through resources, more than double the expenditure which we had on public services and infrastructure back in 1997, which was €16bn.”