Sir, - It's good to see the Public Accounts Committee getting to grips with some serious work. Let's hope this doesn't descend into the media sound-bite nonsense which characterises some committees' work.
When the bank task is over, how about the committee looking much more closely at the output from the Comptroller and Auditor General's Office? I'm puzzled by the apparent "free run" given annually by the media and the Public Accounts Committee to the auditor's report on the spending by Government Departments. Obviously, there are some shortcomings in the control systems on the Government's activities but it seems to me that the report, and the committee's all too predictable reaction to it, have the effect of producing more procedures, more red tape, and more costly activities. All of this at a time when the much publicised Strategic Management Initiative promises the opposite.
I have yet to hear of a report on a Government Department that has too many procedures. Yet too many procedures can cost just as much as too few. - Yours, etc., Breda Lilly,
Mount Anville Wood,
Goatstown,
Dublin 14.