Allen: Give watchdog power to bite

THE Public Accounts Committee has said if its powers are not beefed up it will become the watchdog that cannot bite as it tries to police those who waste taxpayers’ money.

Committee chairman Bernard Allen said the Government needed to give it new legal powers as a matter of urgency.

He said it was easy for people such Minister John Gormley to suggest the committee should probe the controversial dealings of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.