Public accountability and pregnancy legislation
Senator Walsh seeks debate on officials’ accountability to public-accounts oversight and alleged OPW extravagance, then objects to compelling legislators to support the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill against their consciences.
I have raised in the House the need for the public service to be held to account, in particular with reference to the Committee of Public Accounts and the refusal by certain very senior officials of Departments to respond to the searching questions put to them. That is essential. The attempts to undermine the chair of the Committee of Public Accounts is something I regret.
Comment on this
I ask for a debate in this regard. I refer to a story which ran for weeks in one of our national newspapers concerning expenditure by the OPW on an office. We have a monument to OPW profligacy at the gates of Leinster House, a glasshouse which cost €1.2 million, an absolute disgrace that has been criticised in the House and, I hope, will be thus criticised in the future. We might have had a similarly costly monument on Leinster Lawn. Those who came before the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission proposed to spend €750,000 to restore the item but when a number of Members objected, eventually, after four attempts, we got it back with, I believe, a cost in the region of €40,000 for restoration. That is the kind of thing that went on, without politicians even being aware of it. Much of this behaviour comes from officials being instrumental in undermining people who are prepared to question them seriously.
Comment on this
I would like to have a debate on this, with the relevant Minister in the House.
This morning, the Cabinet is discussing the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013, a misnomer if ever there was one. Will the Leader convey to the hierarchy within both his party and others that people should not be forced to abrogate their conscience on this Bill? There is a substantial body of opinion in the Oireachtas opposed to it, people who will be forced to comply by a Whip. This is an intolerable abuse, a corruption of the consciences of many people in the House, and we should condemn it. I hope we will have the opportunity, perhaps with the Minister tomorrow, to make these points directly.