Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The report is standard. It is a case of circle the wagons, nobody is to blame, nobody pays the price and Galway has a piece of infrastructure. We are all proud of Galway's culture, heritage and the part it plays. With every respect to Deputy Connolly, however, Galway does pretty well out of public funds when it comes to the arts. As I said at the meeting when we first raised this, it is an abomination. If it was the private sector, there would be disciplinary action and lay-offs, and whoever was responsible would have difficulty in getting into any kind of job in the future. Yet here we have a report that says not only did it cost €11 million, but we built this €11 million building for a private sector project.

The building is so beautiful that people are frightened to go into it. We will not be able to heat it. It will cost a substantial amount of money to maintain it. The building is to be operated for the profit of a different outfit at a preferential rent. That is a disgrace. It is endemic of what goes on in this room. Whenever the State is involved, we put the car into the hedge but nobody pays the price. We put it down to experience and state that we will know better next time. Without tangible sanction for the endemic mediocrity of the apparatus of the State, this is going to happen again. It is probably happening as we speak. Without doubt, the same unit will use its training in the dark arts of circling the wagons and making a bunch of muck look like a bowl of ice cream.

This committee has to make a recommendation. There must be tangible sanction when total incompetence is endemic to the extent that we have spent €11 million for a private sector company to make profit and we have offered a preferential rent. I have nothing against Galway and its great cultural prowess. If we want to spend this €11 million in Galway it would be better spent on light rail or public transport. Galway has a traffic problem that is proportionately 100 times worse than that of Dublin, not to mention housing, health and other challenges. It is a disgrace. We cannot say it strongly enough. This is a good example on a relatively small scale of what we happens on a massive scale with projects like the national children's hospital - we throw good money after bad. The Taoiseach recently stated that the cost of the latter is heading towards €2 billion. The Deputy beside me has said it will cost more than that. God knows who will be in this room to pick up the pieces when it is finished, or how many billions it will eventually cost. The Pálás Cinema must be seen as a classic example of the incompetence of the apparatus of the State and its inability to admit when it is wrong. There must be tangible sanctions to deter such poor management practices in the future. That tangible sanction is what is missing from the work of the State.