Civil servants and committee accountability
Senator Craughwell rejects criticism of the Technical Group, defends Senator Keogan's independence, and attacks senior civil servants' accountability to Oireachtas committees. He says he will propose an amendment to the Ministers and Secretaries Act to bring them to heel.
With respect to the tweet from Senator Keogan, it is clear that Senator Malcolm Byrne does not understand the meaning of the term "technical group". Senator Keogan does not speak for me or for any of my colleagues. We speak independently of one another, we have our own views and our own minds. I do not subscribe to the tweet that was put out by Senator Keogan. Mr. Drew Harris, one of the people mentioned in it, is an Irish man in every sense of the word.
Senator McDowell referred to Robert Watt's appearance before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach yesterday. An extremely important issue has emerged from the evidence he gave. He spoke about his email having been hacked and that an email was not delivered as a result of the hack. I have checked with experts this morning who told me that if one hits the send button on an email, irrespective of whether it has been hacked or not, the email will be delivered. That is the truth of it. The excuse of systems being hacked has been used in many different instances in this House in relation to failures. I am writing to the Garda Commissioner today, and I ask the Deputy Leader to do likewise, to ask that the National Cyber Security Centre, NCSC, immediately investigate the claim made by Mr. Watt. If his system was not hacked, then he lied to a committee of this House and that is the most serious charge that can be brought against a public servant.
Comment on this
Absolutely and I have not said he lied. I said that if it is shown that the system was not hacked, then he can be accused of lying. Time and again Secretaries General have been called before Oireachtas committees. In the case of the Joint Committee on Transport, of which I am a member, the Secretary General of the Department of Transport has refused to come before the committee. It is time these people were brought to heel. They are answerable to this House and it is time we made them bloody well answerable. I will be proposing an amendment to the Ministers and Secretaries Act in that regard.