Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

——is not about any one particular project, although we could go on for hours about one or another of the Minister of State's failed projects. Our motion is concerned with the pattern established and the wholly inadequate Government response to that pattern. All Governments waste resources for one reason or another but this Government has made it into an art form. If there was an Oscar for waste, the Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, would win it hands down year in, year out. Indeed, one might formulate the Ahern law of public administration. It is like Lord Acton's law of politics — power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Ahern version is identical: all Governments waste money; my Government wastes money absolutely.

Given the fact that many functions of Government are increasingly co-ordinated with other member states of the European Union, for example, monetary affairs, fiscal policy and even taxation, the biggest single task of a modern Irish Government is to manage public services effectively and efficiently. Another major task is to plan and build new public infrastructure. It is obvious that the longer this incompetent Government stays in office, the worse the job it is doing of both.

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