Fine Gael has accused the Government of failing to undertake promised public expenditure reviews and of allowing a planned cost-cutting initiative across all departments fall into "state of collapse".
The party's finance spokesman, Mr Richard Bruton, says just under 14 per cent of 143 value for money reviews pledged under the Expenditure Review Initiative had been undertaken.
Mr Bruton was speaking as the initiative's first report was presented to the Oireachtas Finance Committee.
The Department of Finance set up the Expenditure Review Initiative in 1997 as part of an effort to improve decision-making and get better value for money.
Since then, among the issues it has examined are Garda overtime, the costs of transporting prisoners, Ireland's aid budget, and the cost of embassies.
But Mr Bruton says of the 143 programme reviews that were to be undertaken over the three-year period 2002-2004, only 20 have so far been completed.
"This represents less than 14 per cent delivery on target," he says.
Mr Bruton said the report also shows a total of 45 reviews have been completely abandoned by the Government.
He said: "This showed the extent to which this initiative has been shunted into a siding by this Government, and how any programme to secure value for money had been derailed."
"Once again this report provides withering evidence that outcomes and performance have not been driving the allocation of public money by this Government over the past eight years."
