PAC leaves no room to duck the tough questions

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

To the left hand side of Leinster House lies a modern annex, not really visible from the main gates. It is called LH2000. Many TDs and Senators have offices there and there is a nice cafe, opening out into an internal courtyard with an artificial pond.

Every year a duck arrives into the pond with a brood of ducklings and stays there for a week. Then some guys from the Office of Public Works arrive to take away the duck and ducklings, because they are (literally) sitting ducks for predatory seagulls who think nothing of carrying the little fluffy ones away.

Talking of sitting ducks and predatory seagulls, the most important work in LH2000 takes place deep in the basement.

That houses four modern committee rooms, complete with automatic TV cameras and sophisticated audio equipment. It’s there the Oireachtas committees meet.

Most of the work they do is really important but not all that exciting. They do pre-legislative scrutiny on proposed Bills and also do a line-by-line analysis of Bills going through the Dáil. They also scrutinise European Directives and legislation which may well be a fate worse than death.

But they also do high profile stuff. If there’s a controversy over a health overspend, or about Bus Connects, they will haul the head of the HSE or the chief executive of Dublin Bus or the National Transport Authority in, and grill the individuals (especially if the public is up in arms).

Occasionally, special committees are convened to examine a particular issue or legislation. There was a special committee that came up with the SláinteCare proposal for the future of the health services, which will now be implemented – although I would not hold my breath.

The Committee on the Eighth Amendment, which recommended its repeal and the availability of abortion up to twelve weeks, is probably the best known.

The most high profile, and powerful, committee of all is the Public Accounts Committee. Unlike the other committees only TDs are entitled to be members of it. Its chair is always drawn from the main opposition party, in this case Fianna Fáil’s Sean Fleming.

The remit of PAC is to safeguard public money. It is called the watchdog for public finances, there to ensure value-for-money, and to haul back Departments and agencies that are spending money in a spendthrift way without being accountable about it.

Much of its work is based on the work of the Comptroller and Auditor General, Seamus McCarthy. His office essentially audits each major Department and agency to ensure public monies are being spent appropriately.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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