Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We only had one debate in the Dáil in respect of this. The Minister asked a question. I pointed it out to him. If he wants to blame me for his failures as a finance Minister, he can go ahead. I wrote to him stating that the scheme should be designed in such a way as to ensure the supports would not go to dividends or shareholders. I also raised the issue of profitable companies hoarding this money. If he is satisfied with the idea that a company can avail of scarce taxpayers' money and pay it all out in dividends, that is okay. I recognise that Sinn Féin called for a scheme such as this. We supported the scheme because of its value. However, that does not justify the fact that the Government did not do what many other governments did, which was to introduce a condition preventing this money being paid to shareholders. The Minister can argue that they wanted to keep it simple. If some people decided not to go into the scheme for that reason, so be it. They got valuable State support and all they had to do was not pay it out to their shareholders.