The role of the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) is to audit the national accounts, to examine how the executive spends public money and to consider where it has been well spent or badly wasted.
The agency's 2014 report has highlighted a range of issues, which the Dáil Public Accounts Committee can now choose to investigate further, by holding departments and State agencies to account for their actions.
One area that has been closely scrutinised by the C&AG is the cost of the bank bailout. At the end of 2014, the net cost was €43 billion – when the value of the State’s shareholding in the various banks is included. And estimates for the annual cost of servicing the debt ranges from €850 million to €1 .7 billion.
A feature of the financial support for the banks has been the cost of consultancy advice sought to help stabilise the banking sector. By last December, this had reached €152 million, and consisted mainly of fees paid to lawyers and accountants – with one legal firm (Arthur Cox) receiving €33.1 million. (The State is the largest procurer of legal services in Ireland.)
And while the C&AG has said the Central Bank and the National Treasury Management Agency has recovered a "large proportion" of these costs from the banks, bank customers may nevertheless also have paid a price in the form of higher charges.
The Department of Finance in 2011 set up a special unit to deal with aspects of the banking crisis. The unit includes those with relevant legal, financial and banking expertise. By last December it had cost €7.6 million – 5 per cent of the cost of all the outside consultants.
This again raises the question about the balance to be struck between the current practice which favours the outsourcing of professional advice or the in-house alternative, that of seeking to develop adequate professional skills within key Government departments.
A matter the Public Accounts Committee is well-placed to address.