Calls for watchdog to vet State projects

FINE GAEL last night demanded the creation of a powerful Oireachtas watchdog committee able to sound alarm bells over potentially disastrous projects before taxpayers' money is wasted on them.

Front bench TD Bernard Allen insisted present arrangements were grossly inadequate as the Dáil and Senate could only vet spending retrospectively.

He called for the Public Expenditure Committee, which sat in the 1980s and was able to investigate projects as they were being planned, to be re-established with extra powers.