Government spending - Time to get serious about waste

With Taoiseach Bertie Ahern about to unleash another new Government on the suspecting taxpayer, he might advise them to take cognisance of Comptroller and Auditor General John Purcell’s admonitions on how to treat public money.

Dubbed the taxpayers’ watchdog on Government expenditure, Mr Purcell’s annual report is once again a work on the fiction of governmental budgets and confirms the taxpayer’s worst fears that value for money is not official policy.

From the C&AG’s report, the general departmental handling of money would confirm most peoples’ belief that Charlie McCreevy’s financial rectitude was in the realm of mythology.