Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

At a time when the Minister for Health and Children is leaking memos to the press to the effect that he is attempting to obtain €50 million from the Minister for Finance, the Government has wasted €52 million on a system of electronic voting for which nobody asked. This was the bright idea of the absent Minister, Deputy Noel Dempsey. We have no shortage of tallypersons, yet the Government wastes this money and considers it a laughing matter. The taxpayers do not think it is a laughing matter. It is incompetence and arrogance of the highest order.

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