Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

In any other organisation or local club - for example, in my GAA club at home where I am involved - if anything is done wrong, you will not be in the same position; you will be gone. There seems to be a situation here where the level of mistakes or mismanagement - I do not know what the right word is - does not seem to matter. You stay at the same level. There are no consequences for making massive mistakes that cost the taxpayer. You hold onto a job at the same level. There is no other organisation in the country where that happens. At a local level, in my own parish, I would not be in the same position in my club, which I was involved with for 30 years, if I did something wrong for a few hundred euro. You would be gone and rightly so because you are managing the finances of your local community.

These are the finances of the taxpayer, and it is very difficult to look in and see that where serious and massive mistakes are being made at a loss to the taxpayer, there does not seem to be any consequences at all. We move on and do a review of it until something happens the next time and then we do a review of that again. I do not think it is acceptable, to be quite honest but that just seems to be the answer. People who made serious mistakes are in an organisation at the same level and still being paid for by the taxpayer, despite losing taxpayers' money.