'Needless squandering' by State bodies criticised

THE PUBLIC Accounts Committee has said there are “still far too many Government departments and State bodies failing to employ sensible procedures when it comes to spending taxpayers’ money”.

The committee said this resulted in the “needless squandering of significant sums”.

Reviewing the issues covered by the committee from October 2008 to July 2009, the committee said there was “on too many occasions” examples of “shoddy standards and careless management of the State’s resources”.

Among its recommendations were that the Garda modernise its vehicle-purchasing system after 308 cars were left in storage for more then a year.

The committee also recommended some 1,000 soldiers should no longer receive Border allowances, and that the Revenue should make a practice of re-auditing previously non-compliant taxpayers. The committee’s annual report, published yesterday, was headlined “Litany of Waste, Poor Policy and Misuse of Public Money”.

It underlined key findings and recommendations relating to the agencies that have come before the committee and made recommendations on how to achieve better value for money and accountability from these bodies.

It said the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment wrote off €2.5 million in uncollectible debt in 2008, and recommended a new and “proper” analysis of the redundancy payment scheme.

It also discovered the Revenue had written off €118 million in 2007, a feature the committee hoped could be avoided in future through improved monitoring of non-compliant taxpayers.

The committee recommended investments in information technology and said procurement practices must be tightened up across the public sector.