Patrick O’Donovan, the former minister of State for the Office of Public Works (OPW), has denied having any responsibility for the €336,000 spend on Leinster House bicycle shed, which he described as embarrassing.
Mr Donovan, now the Minister for Higher Education, said he first learned about the project’s cost when he read it in the media. He said he learned of the €1.4 million cost of a security hut at the Department of Finance when the OPW’s John Conlon outlined it to members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) last week.
The Fine Gael TD acknowledged he was the minister of State with responsibility of the OPW at the time but insisted he had no part in decision making at that level.
“I wasn’t responsible for it. I didn’t approve the money because that’s not the role of the Minister of State for the Office of Public Works. The accounting officer in the Office of Public Works is the chairman,” he told reporters in Dublin on Thursday.
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PAC chairman Brian Stanley on Thursday told committee members that OPW officials would appear before them later this month over the controversial spend on the bike shed. The Sinn Féin TD said “hopefully we’re still here” at that stage, hinting at a possible dissolution of the Dáil due to speculation about an early general election.
Mr Stanley said the spending watchdog had invited the OPW to appear before it on October 2nd but was told this date was not suitable due to other engagements. It had instead proposed October 22nd as an alternative, which PAC members agreed to on Thursday.
Earlier, Mr O’Donovan attended the Department of Further and Higher Education’s post-budget briefing and was asked repeatedly about his view of the various OPW spending controversies. He said he agreed with Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe when he said he was “embarrassed” about the sum involved.
He said that as minister of State for the OPW “you don’t get detailed day by day analysis with regard to individual projects, with regard to maintenance, with regard to roofs”.
“The Minister is not the accounting officer,” he said. “The Minister is not the person who signs off on expenditure with regard to the OPW, no more than the Minister signs off on individual expenditures in health, education.”
In relation to the budget for his current department, Mr Donovan said the Government’s commitment to providing an additional €650 million to the higher education sector between now and 2030 would help institutions with staffing and other costs as well as course development and delivery, which would benefit students.
He said a decision to tap into the surplus contained in the National Training Fund would allow for the funding of substantial initiatives in the areas of lifelong learning and work related upskilling. He outlined funding for a range of initiatives including supports for SME’s seeking to release workers for training and older workers looking to upskill.
“We know substantial cohorts of our working population need to be reskilled for the workplaces of the near future.”
Minister of State Niall Collins said there will be further expansion in the area of apprenticeships, which he said were becoming more popular as they became “destigmatised”. He said the work to develop apprenticeships in non-traditional areas continues but there would be an emphasis on growing the numbers of people in craft apprenticeships as part of a wider attempt to meet skills needs in the construction and related sectors.
“That’s very, very important in terms of meeting our climate change and, particularly, our housing for all targets, because we have to have the pipeline of skilled workers out there.”
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