Article taken from IrishExaminer.com
Wednesday, November 02, 2011 – 07:28 AM
Members of the opposition are calling for a full report on the accounting error, revealed yesterday, that caused an over-stating of our national debt by billions.
The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Fianna Fáil’s John McGuinness, is seeking a report from Department of Finance officials, and urgently.
The mistake – which was uncovered by the National Treasury Management Agency some time ago – caused our debt to be calculated at €3.6bn more then it really is.
Mr McGuinness said the NTMA could have called attention to the error before now.
“They had every opportunity to bring it to the attention of the public – the agency was before the Public Accounts Committee just recently…but that didn’t happen,” he said.
“As a result, it has now been exposed through the media in this way and it just adds further uncertainty…at a time where certainty is required by the general public.”
He added today that he believed there were serious accounting issues in many Government departments, which had to be addressed.