Business Opinion: In a bold and decisive move, the Minister for Finance said last week he had instructed his officials to "examine" ways to ensure the State got better value for money and more certainty about the cost of infrastructure projects.In a bold and decisive move, the Minister for Finance said last week he had instructed his officials to "examine" ways to ensure the State got better value for money and more certainty about the cost of infrastructure projects, writes John McManus.
It is tempting to scoff, but if we take the Minister at face value he does seem genuinely concerned that the taxpayer is getting worse value for money than a Leeds United season ticket holder. Presumably then we can look forward to Mr McCreevy's fine words being matched by deeds in the coming weeks.
If that is to be the case we had better hope that the Mr McCreevy who made these promises is not the same Mr McCreevy who said much the same thing last November. That Mr McCreevy told the Dáil on November 21st that the National Development Finance Agency would "maximise value for money for the Exchequer" when it came to infrastructure projects.
Introducing the National Development Finance Agency Bill Mr McCreevy said the objective of the agency "will be to ensure overall best value for money and encouraging the maximum private sector involvement in financing projects". If the National Development Finance Agency has done all or any of these things over the last 12 months, then it is to be commended for its modesty.
In the intervening 12 months the bad news on cost overruns and delays kept coming thick and fast. Most recently the news that the Dublin Port Tunnel looks like it will have to be raised at the cost of €2.5 million an inch.
We must also assume that the Mr McCreevy who addressed the Construction Industry Federation last week is not the Mr McCreevy who just days before the National Development Finance Agency debate last year told his Dáil colleagues that "greater attention needs to be devoted to securing value for money through more effective control and management of public expenditure".
He was speaking at the start of the debate on 2003 Estimates which he had published a few days earlier with comments to the effect that the State will have to get better value for money across all areas of the public system. To be exact he said: "It is therefore appropriate to focus more attention now on the value we are getting in terms of the quality and quantity of public services we are getting."
That particular Mr McCreevy has gone on to let the taxpayer pick up the bill for civil and public service benchmarking on the basis of value for money criteria that are completely lacking in creditability. A Leeds United season ticket is better value for money than what has been secured in exchange for the next tranche of benchmarking.
Members of the Construction Industry Federation who sat through Mr McCreevy's speech last week could only have sat there in wonderment. Surely no one, not even a politician, could have the nerve to lecture them about value for money after having failed utterly to deliver on his own promises in this regard.
Later in the week they must also have stopped to wonder if the Minister for Finance who had given them such a tongue lashing was the same Minister for Finance whose role in the National Agricultural Exhibition Centre at Punchestown was revealed at the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday. This particular Mr McCreevy played a role in the approval of a project that doubled in cost in a matter of months.
The committee was told that the approval flowed from a meeting between its developers and two Ministers, Mr McCreevy and Mr Walsh, the Minister for Agriculture. Within two months of applying for funding in November 1999, the developers got €6.9 million, Five months later they were back looking for the same again, and they got it.
In the words of the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr John Purcell, the developers seemed to be "pushing at an open door". He added that there was no evidence of a critical cost benefit analysis being carried out before the funding for the National Agricultural Exhibition Centre was granted.
Around one event a month has been held at the centre in its first year of operation. They include the European Eventing Championship, farm machinery shows and a pedigree cattle show, the committee was told.
Surely, the members of the Construction Industry Federation must have thought to themselves, the Mr McCreevy who spoke so eloquently about making sure the taxpayers' money is not squandered could not be one and the same as the chap that the Public Accounts Committee was talking about.
Let's hope they are right. Otherwise we are left with no other conclusion to draw than that the Minister for Finance thinks we are gullible fools and that all he has to do to keep us off his back is to pop up once a year - November seems to be his favourite time - and start blathering on about value for money. For the rest of the year he can just get on with failing to deliver on his promises and hoping nobody will notice things like the Punchestown development.
If they are wrong and all these Mr McCreevys are one and the same, then it's about time the taxpayer started looking for value for money from their finance minister.
jmcmanus@irish-times.ie
