asked the Minister for Finance if he will give details of the procedures and systems now in place to assess value for money, effectiveness and efficiency in public expenditure programmes in the wake of the cessation of the publication of the Comprehensive Public Expenditure Programmes book, the abolition of the Department of the Public Service, and the abandonment of the Dáil Committee on Public Expenditure.

The primary responsibility for ensuring that public expenditure programmes give value for money and are managed efficiently lies with the Departments concerned. Secretaries of Departments, as accounting officers, are responsible for the efficiency and economy of administration in their Departments.

With a view to promoting good management in Departments, my Department have launched a number of major initiatives in recent years. These include the issue of guidelines for developing systems of financial management and a requirement that all Departments adopt departmental management systems with common essential features. Such systems provide, inter alia, for planning on the basis of expenditure programmes and activities and active review mechanisms.

In addition, my Department are reviewing the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General to see if proposals could be prepared to extend his remit to include considerations of effectiveness and efficiency.

The Management Services Unit of my Department carry out work surveys of Departments on request with a view to improving efficiency and effectiveness in the areas concerned.

I agree with the Minister and I do not want anything that I ask him to be regarded as criticism. Would he inform us if he can, of the cost per annum of producing the comprehensive programme on public expenditure and would he not now, even at this stage, especially since public expenditure is so much an issue of public importance, reconsider the decision taken to end the production of this programme on an annual basis in order to inform the public as to the real extent and nature of the difficulty with public finances and public spending?

I do not have the actual cost but I will convey that information to the Deputy as soon as I have it. A volume of comprehensive public expenditure programmes for 1986 was published in December 1986 and it was intimated in the introduction to that volume that for the future a summary of financial data would be published annually with updates of the programme statements being published at less frequent intervals. In line with this arrangement, a summary of the public expenditure programmes for 1987 which gives a summary of the financial data of each programme but which does not contain detailed programme statements was published in June of this year. Therefore, information is being published in relation to that matter but I will convey the cost to the Deputy.