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THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS that led to €336,000 of public money being spent on a bike shed at Leinster House in Dublin must be investigated, according to the Taoiseach and Tánaiste.
Both leaders said that rather than one person being held accountable for signing a purchase order, the Public Accounts Committee and other watchdogs should be probing the entire procurement process.
The new bike shed for Leinster House, which allows for storage of eighteen bikes, cost €336,051.30 in total. The cost of construction and installation was €322,282.78.
Last week, Finance minister Jack Chambers said that whoever signed off on the price of new bike shed at Leinster House must be held accountable. Today, Harris and Tánaiste Micheál Martin said that the entire decision-making process must instead be probed.
The Taoiseach questioned why there was no “back and forth” between the contractor and the Oireachtas over the price of the project, reasoning that – he believes – those in charge of running Leinster House wouldn’t have approved a project with that price tag.
“They’re the sort of answers we want to know. I hope they’re forthcoming very quickly,” he said.
Harris said that infrastructure, such as bike shelters, at other locations have been “a hell of a lot less” and added that there needs to be a “serious reflection” on the cost when pricing projects in the future.
Asked today if the matter could be resolved and discussed in one phone call, Martin said: “It’s important to go through it properly.”
He added that while he didn’t know who it was that approved the purchase, he understood that the matter was due to come before the Public Accounts Committee where it will be examined.
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Now let’s have the same scrutiny over the 2.5 billion spent on the childrens hospital.
@Dere: it’s gone to 5 billion this morning, once BAM heard the Apple decision.
As if he didn’t know , ffs
@Sandra Lysaght: He probably didn’t. He can’t know about all govt departments spending. But lessons are never learned and spending like this happens too often…… No better man to put out a statement on the matter to sound good. PR team playing a blinder!
@Sandra Lysaght: the man that was bertie aherns right hand man for decades, but also didn’t know bertie was corrupt?
@another one? what’s going on is the semi state sec:
@another one? what’s going on is the semi state sec: Problem is who in the spend approval hierarchy approved this? That person in the OPW or department that controls OPW must justify the decision. If s/he can’t then they must be fired and probably their superior too. This is basic accountability and must be seen to be done.
When a section of irish society are so terrified of change that they keep voting for ffg over and over again , It’s no wonder that the entitled wasters believe they are immune from responsibility
@Robert Halvey: Says more about the useless opposition that we have no real alternatives.
@Daniel Roche: no, this is down to Fianna gael! #galwaytent is alive and well
Just see who signed off on it, see who tendered, if they donate to any party.
Who friend they are.
Simple call to head of dept should suffice. Then send in the guards.
@Colette Byrne: Not good enough, their replacement will just carry on the tradition or someone else will.
Fix the system that hides the rats.
@Steve O’Hara-Smith: You are correct.
The decision-making levels of the Civil Service has seeded the system with more of the same.
@Colette Byrne: guards are still looking into the Moriarty tribunal
Simple Simon could get to the bottom of this with a few phone calls. But why should he, gross overspending and backhanders built this fine nation
As if he didn’t know
The left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing.
@smatrix mantra: It probably knows well. Both hands are in collusion.
What whoever signed off on it. I would really more concerned how can this government function properly if they still dont know the person the signned off on project. Or just pretending that’s they don’t know who person is
A distraction from the €1.8 billion over spend on a hospital.
No wonder Ryan jumped ship a few weeks ago
This is Fraud, pure and simple.
I’d say there will be a lot of letter writing, after which the documents connected to the bike palace would have been shredded “by accident” and the answer will never found.
Why can’t both happen? The person who signed held accountable… And the process investigated?
Why can’t one person be held accountable for starters instead of yet another large investigation with lessons learned and a load of hand wringing and soundbites – the person that signed that off should never have responsibility over spending public money again. I sign off on a lot of private company spend every year to the tune of millions I can tell you that this person would be ran out of any business for incompetency. Let’s start with doing that first….it would be a valuable lesson to others in the OPW, HSE etc.
Lesson will be learnt, no doubt will be the soundbite coming from top office.
They need time to put a story together.
Something stinks to high heaven in this CONtract. Public Account’s Committee should pounce on this now and not let it drift like they did with THE RTÉ farce!!!
That’s it lads, just keep spending our taxpayers money. Bit late for oversight now.
I think it would be better to get 26 old age pensions one from each country just give them liven expensive on top of the .pension the won’t be long getting to the bottom of this candle
Like they don’t know already…Media just assists them in burying it knowing full well they know who cleared it
The contractor also needs to justify how the job cost so much. They are surely at fault as much as whoever approved it.
OPW have been getting away with this for years, overpriciing of state jobs by 200 and 300% and still getting approval to do it. There should be an audit carried out on all jobs carried out by the OPW.
How can they be trusted with 13bn if they can’t manage 335k?
Not surprised at the cost you ever watch room to improve that’s Joe Public, this is a government budget it’s on par with the children’s hospital the metro east link m50 etc….. it’s quite reasonable really.
CAB should be sent to investigate, , I’d imagine these muppets that sign off on these projects are living in mansions, have top of the range cars and probably villas in the south of Spain
@James Moylan: and all have Fianna gael connections.
Did he not see it going up and thought I wonder how much it costs?
I’d say that it was a female civil servant that was subject to coercive control!
Mehole – “Down with that sorta thing”. A minute later – ” ok lads. Helluva weeks works. Good Job all! Lets go for a pint!”
” Going forward we will learn from our mistakes” and all the usual blah blah that goes with the “outraged” Taoiseach’s inane comments. Give us the runt in the public service who signed off on this contract. Name him or her before you remove them from their post. This shiite happens too often here without any punishment.
Will this be before or after the NCH, Metro and Covid inquiries Simon ?
Still unable to give a clear answer. Someone in the public service signed off on this. Why have they not been fired yet. I have not paid taxes for 42 years to have them misspent like this. But wait is thst what they always do.
If its from a framework , there’s bigger questions for the office of government procurement. What else has been purchased under this framework and at what cost?
Wow .. well done Taoiseach .. real leadership. What a guy
Chief Spoofer, he is the man in charge, it happened on his watch, too busy running around commenting on everything trying to make every news feed, to actually getting anything done. Investigation launched will be his standard reply, but won’t tell you that the report will take two years & be long forgotten about by then. Maybe if he is indignant & annoyed about the Bike Shed, he should familiarize himself with the National Children’s Hospital which puts the Bike Shed in the halfpenny place by a couple of Billion, no substance to this man, all waffle.
I have it on very good authority that the Dail bike shelter will be standing when others have rusted away. Maybe you get what you pay for.
Sounds like they know who signed off on it so rather than sanction one of their pals they will blame the proces.In other words you can’t sack a process. Reality is this overspend warrants a Garda investigation as it well beyond a simple oversight.
36 bikes, not 18 – two per stand. Still ridiculous.
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