Sinn Féin has decided to nominate Galway West TD Mairéad Farrell as the new chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee, replacing the party’s former TD Brian Stanley.
Mr Stanley resigned from the party last weekend, strongly criticising an internal inquiry into a complaint against him which he described as a “kangaroo court”.
Ms Farrell, who was earlier this year appointed to the PAC, is the party’s spokeswoman on higher and further education and previously held the public expenditure brief for Sinn Féin.
While in the normal course of affairs, the nomination of a new chair by a party to a position previously held by one of their TDs would be a routine matter, Government TDs on the PAC and other Opposition parties have indicated they will either not work with a new Sinn Féin chair or seek to block the appointment until matters relating to a series of controversies facing the party are addressed.
Ms Farrell’s nomination, which will be discussed by the Dáil’s business committee on Thursday, will then be subject to approval by a Dáil motion.
Sinn Féin is also expected to nominate a new member of the PAC.
All eyes will now be on what efforts materialise to potentially frustrate either or both of those two processes. In the likely event that a new chair is not installed in time for tomorrow’s meeting of PAC, it is expected that meeting will be chaired by the committee’s deputy chair, Social Democrats TD for Kildare North, Catherine Murphy.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald emphasised Ms Farrell’s credentials and sought to focus attention on the Government and State spending.
“The Public Accounts Committee performs a very important function in its scrutiny of how public money is spent and holding the government and other bodies to account,” she said.
“It is particularly important when we have a government that is synonymous with serial waste and incompetence when it comes to the public purse.
“We’ve seen a catalogue of scandals around the waste of public money with the bicycle shed, the security hut, the phone pouches and of course the ongoing debacle of runaway costs and never ending delays regarding the National Children’s Hospital,” she said.
”As the lead party of opposition, it is for Sinn Féin to nominate the Chairperson of the PAC.
“Mairéad brings a considerable wealth of knowledge on budgetary matters.”
She has previously served as party spokesperson on Public Expenditure and subsequently as party spokesperson for Further and Higher Education. She has a Masters in Finance and a Degree in Economics and worked in finance, all of which will further assist her in fulfilling the role.”
Ms McDonald said Ms Farrell is “meticulous, forensic and incredibly detail focused”.
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