Committee Reports > List of Committees > Dáil > 1988 > Committee of Public Accounts > Report - Appropriation Accounts 1984

APPENDIX 3

VHF STATIONS IN CORK AND KERRY.

Our Ref: F81/2/667

Clerk to Committee,

Committee of Public Accounts,

Leinster House,

Dublin 2.

Dear Mr. Donlon,

I am advised by the Department of Finance that at a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee on 27th November 1986, at which the Comptroller and Auditor General’s Report on the 1984 Appropriation Account for Communications was discussed, Deputy G. Mitchell asked that the Office of Public Works supply a note to the Committee on whether Finance Circular 1/83 was observed in the case of the V.H.F. stations project in Counties Kerry and Cork and if it was not observed the reasons why not.

Finance Circular 1/83 was issued in March ’83 and deals in general with the procedures to be followed for the planning and control of public capital expenditure. The circular and accompanying appendix is largely concerned with the steps to be taken in bringing a project to contract stage though it also sets down the procedures to be followed once final approval is secured and a contract placed.

I have to say that in so far as it was practical to apply the terms of Department of Finance Circular 1/83 to a contract placed in November ’81 and on which the bulk of the work including the V.H.F. stations at Kilkeaveragh and Ballyhearney West was completed by September ’83 that this was done. In relation to the V.H.F. station at Allihies, which was requested by Department of Transport in October 83, our reasons for doing this work as an extra on the main contract have been fully detailed in my reply of 26th August, 1986 to the Comptroller and Auditor General’s query in relation to the Valentia project. At that stage there was no question of off-setting the cost of the Allihies project by cost reducing changes in other areas of the contract as required by Finance Circular 1/83.

Having regard to the advanced stage of the project at the time Finance Circular 1/83 was promulgated an individual project manager, with responsibility for overseeing the execution of the project, was not designated.

Yours faithfully,

Paschal Scanlan,

8th December, 1986.