Public Expenditure Policy
Dail Éireann — 2025-04-03
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Peadar Tóibín (AON), Meath West

Bureaucracy does not create accountability. Accountability is an issue that is created if there is a cost to an individual for making a mistake over and over again that costs the State. I very clearly asked what the total overruns in public infrastructure projects were. The accountability to the Dáil has not achieved an answer on that here and now. I also asked what overruns were happening in public projects at present that the public did not yet know about. It is important that we put this question in shining neon lights because the Department knows about cost overruns that it will not tell people about yet. That is a real problem for transparency and accountability.
We have a situation where 100 Dublin Bus electric buses did not move an inch because somebody forgot to put in a planning application for a charger. We also have a situation where €300 million has been spent on metro north and not one shovel has been put into the ground. People at home are so frustrated with the fact that their hard-earned taxpayers' money is being incinerated and is not achieving the public infrastructure they so badly need.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-04-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:53:41+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-04-03