C&AG refutes claim he 'guessed' 1bn abuse bill

THE Comptroller and Auditor General yesterday hit back at claims that he had guessed the compensation bill for abuse victims will cost the taxpayer up to 1 billion.

The fallout over the Government's indemnity deal with the religious orders continued as the Tánaiste Mary Harney failed to back up her Progressive Democrats colleague, Justice Minister Michael McDowell. Ms Harney stood over the agreement on compensation for abuse victims, limiting the religious orders' contribution to 127m, exposing the taxpayer to the rest of the bill.

Exacerbating the split within Government ranks, Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy defended the deal by suggesting the State had to shoulder its part of the blame as it had put the victims into the institutions, and did not follow up when abuses became known.

At the start of an investigation into the deal by the high-powered Public Accounts Committee, the C&AG John Purcell defended his estimate and said his office had expertise in making such calculations.

Challenging the 1 billion figure on the eventual payout, the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern had dismissed the estimate of the senior watchdog on State spending earlier in the week. In a clear retort to the former Minister for Education Michael Woods accusation that he had "guesstimated" the cost of the redress scheme, Mr Purcell said the estimates were based on all the figures available "I have a personal aversion to the word 'guesstimate'. That suggests that people plucked them off the top of their head.

We are used to doing this. It is part of our everyday work," he said.

Accepting that it was difficult to put a figure on the ultimate cost and that there were a number of contingencies to take into account, Mr Purcell said the Government could have put more effort into ascertaining the cost

"Greater diligence in these areas would have at least added extra rigour to the State's negotiating stance," he said.

Defending his controversial role in the negotiations, Department of Education secretary general John Dennehy said he and Mr Woods were not accompanied by legal advisors from the office of the then Attorney General, Mr McDowell, at certain meetings as they only dealt with policy matters.

But the concerns raised by Mr McDowell about the lack of legal expertise at these meetings and the exclusion of the AG's office was not shared by Ms Harney. "I can't speak for Michael McDowell. I was not the law agent of the State. I was not aware of what Michael McDowell was involved in," she said.