Tony Gregory (Dublin Central, Independent)

Ba mhaith liom tacaíocht a thabhairt don tairiscint thábhachtach seo i dtaobh an bhealach scanallaigh atá airgead an phobail curtha amú ag an Rialtas. I support this motion highlighting the scandalous waste of public funds and hard earned taxpayers' money by this incompetent and irresponsible Government.

In the time available I will refer to two of the most blatant examples of waste in recent times. The former Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, squandered €60 million on electronic voting machines, with ongoing costs. Recently, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, purchased a farm for €30 million when a few weeks later, a farm of similar size a short distance away was sold for a fifth of that price. These are prime examples. In any other Parliament or in a private business, that sort of incompetence and wastefulness would have resulted in the enforced resignation of the Ministers involved but not here. Why not? Because the whole Government is at it and it is a part of a culture of waste and irresponsible squandering. The end result is that those who suffer are those most in need in society. They must pay the price.

Two examples have come to my attention in recent days. A person in my constituency is on disability allowance of €148.50 per week and her father died, having worked for a bank all of his life. She was awarded an orphan's pension by the bank of a mere €7.74 per week. What did the Department of Social and Family Affairs do? It assessed that amount against her disability allowance and reduced it by €5 to €143.50 per week. This family, having lost the father and main earner, was further penalised by this Government's policies in a most insensitive and despicable manner.

I was contacted today by the family resource centre in Hill Street in the most disadvantaged area of Dublin's inner city. This centre works with 125 families with children under five years of age but it is faced with closure, taking this service from the community, because this Government refuses to decide on its future funding. These examples show how the most vulnerable in our society are treated by a penny pinching Government while the same Government squanders shamelessly from the public purse.

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