As the Government puts the final touches on the Budget, this weekend's episode of Behind the Story takes a look at public spending and an innovative database that is helping to keep track of public money.
Albert Dolan, of Fianna Fáil is one of the youngest TDs in the Dáil. Mr Dolan and a friend have developed a public payment tracker that keeps track of purchase orders. This enables members of the public to see how much money is being spent by government departments, councils and state agencies. Mr Dolan says it is important this type of information is available:
"The reason we are doing this is to make public spending more accessible to the public, at the end of the day, all of these reports were available online but nobody had pulled them together".
Mr Dolan said for a relatively small sum [€100] plus €5 per month, the tracker is providing useful information on public spending. The database covers €78.5 billion of spend and Mr Dolan says he has received positive feedback from the Taoiseach Micheál Martin and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Jack Chambers.
"We, in this country have a significant amount of intelligent people that are so talented and are willing to solve these problems that the State has for a fraction of the cost that we are paying for problems to be solved at the moment."
Mr Dolan released the public payment tracker earlier this week and is already getting feedback from procurement experts on how to improve aspects of it.
Later on Behind the Story, the presenters review Taylor Swift’s new album "The Life of a Showgirl" and share their favourite songs!
You can listen to Behind the Story which is available on the RTÉ Radio Player.
You can also find episodes on Apple here, or on Spotify here.
