Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to move on. Nearly every speaker has referred to the rent paid for departmental premises on Wolfe Tone Street, Dublin. I thought the witness was a little blasé this morning when referring to a sum of €3.5 million, which went to waste. The attitude was dismissive. It was as if this happened and no one will be held responsible. This money would achieve a great deal in areas such as housing and medical cards, which are crying out for money. Was any individual or group held responsible for that mistake? Who owned the premises? Was it privately owned and rented? Who did the legal work on the contract and failed to examine the planning permission? Why was the problem with planning permission not found for 12 months? Why did the Department wriggle out? Why did it furnish the premises? Why was someone not monitoring the position and shouting "Stop"? Why did the costs escalate to €3.8 million before someone finally called a halt? I presume the settlement of €1.8 million was to compensate the owner of the premises, in other words, to allow the Department to buy its way out of the contract. Why did it take ten years to do all this? There are major questions about how this was left to drag on. Someone has to take responsibility.