Sinn Féin has said a “new broom” is needed in the public finances, pledging to set up an audit of State spending to identify waste if returned to government after the general election.
Launching the party’s six point plan to tackle wasteful expenditure, Sinn Féin’s finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said that “we need to find out exactly how much money this Government has been wasting, department by department. What are the things we don’t even know about yet?”
Mr Doherty pointed to the Oireachtas bike shed and security hut, coming in at €336,000 and €1.4 million respectively, as well as the over-budget and long delayed €2 billion national children’s hospital and the budget-day decision to spend €9 million on mobile phone pouches for schools.
He said the Government parties have become “careless and wasteful with public finances”.
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The party’s further and higher expenditure spokeswoman Maireád Farrell, who chaired the Public Accounts Committee in the last Dáil, said the waste audit would be initiated “immediately” if Sinn Féin were put into government.
She also said the party would reform and expand the Freedom of Information Act, with the system for accessing government information by the public now in need of a major overhaul. The powers of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Ombudsman would be expanded, and that the latter body would be given extra powers.
Ms Farrell said that the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission would get extra powers to get access to procurement data so it could detect anticompetitive behaviour and protect against bid-rigging and other practices in relation to spending public funds.
Mr Doherty was dismissive of Fine Gael plans to reconstitute the Office of Public Works, which oversaw the construction of the bike shelter, saying that “shifting the problem around isn’t the issue”.
He said the Government parties were now rushing to allocate the money from the Apple tax case, saying they tried to “spin the yarn” that Ireland would not be able to spend the money if it came into the exchequer.
Ms Farrell said there should be an “anti-corruption commission”.
Asked about comments made by Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin that Sinn Féin were diametrically opposed with his party due to its economic policies, Mr Doherty instead pointed to a “gulf” on housing policy as the biggest issue.
Sinn Féin dismissed suggestions it was delaying the launch of its manifesto, due on Wednesday, until after Tuesday night’s 10-way leader debate on RTÉ. Mr Doherty said at this stage in the last general election campaign a lot of the media had written off Sinn Féin, promising the party would work “might and mane” right up to polls closing.
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