Outgoing Chair of the Public Accounts Committee and candidate for Galway West, Mairéad Farrell, has said that it is time that the state changed its approach to public spending.
Speaking as Sinn Féin outlined six steps to end the waste of public money, Ms Farrell said that the only way to do that would be through a change of government.
Mairéad Farrell said:
“We have a comprehensive plan to deal with the extraordinary waste of public money.
“We have areas of our public service crying out for funding, crying out for investment. But the public sees berserk sums of money being wasted.
“Whether it be security huts in Leinster House for €1.4m, the world’s most expensive bike shelter, the world’s most expensive children’s hospital flying in consultants to supervise the hanging of curtains in Leinster house for €70,000, nobody is ever held accountable.
“The answer is always the same. We are told ‘lessons will be learned’, until it happens again.
“We must not think of these massive overspends as simply a waste of the taxpayers’ money. We must think of them in terms of their opportunity cost.
“For every security hut or bike shelter, that is money that could have been used to hire more healthcare workers.
“The €2bn that has now been overspent on the Children’s Hospital is money that could have gone towards affordable rental and purchase homes and social housing.
“This has to stop and we have a clear plan to address this.
“A Sinn Féin government would enact the following suite of measures:
- A Waste Audit of all Government Departments and State bodies.
- A New Standards and Anti-Corruption Commission.
- Reform and Expansion of Freedom of Information Act.
- Expand powers of the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) and the Ombudsman.
- Stronger powers for the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.
- New legislation for transparency in procurement and to regulate tenders to stop massive cost overruns in capital projects.
“If enacted, these would help to drastically increase the accountability, transparency and value for money in public spending.
“A Sinn Féin government would, from day one, get to work on these issues.”
