Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

Notwithstanding the Minister's fence sitting, there are also serious questions to be asked about the refusal of Dublin Bus to participate and co-operate in the implementation of a Government decision. No matter what the excuses and irrespective of the motivation which may well have been bus users' interests, the Government as a whole cannot allow this blatant rejection and ignoring of a Government decision by anybody, particularly semi-State bodies. This sort of behaviour cannot go unquestioned and should be questioned by the Minister. No public body can be allowed to subvert the implementation of Government policy, no matter how poorly articulated or overseen that policy has been.

Clearly there was a failure of co-operation, a failure to put partisan chip aside, but the big failure was at political level, first, by the refusal to clarify the future transport framework for Dublin and also by the Minister's failure to respond, take charge, ask questions or show any particular interest at any stage even when there were clear signals that disaster was glaringly obvious. There were rumblings for a time but when the tendering system failed, a very unusual event, at that time surely the alarm signals should have gone off. Instead the Minister came in here and in response to my questioning he shook his head in despair, tut-tutted at the lack of progress and generally behaved as if it had nothing at all to do with him. In this Government's world it had nothing to do with him. The buck never stops with the Government because it is not its buck. It is not its hard earned money. Not alone is it not just the taxpayers' money, there is plenty more where that came from. This is the attitude that pervades the Department of Transport and every Department — incompetence and indifference to wasteful public spending, a failure to plan, monitor and evaluate projects and a complete denial of any responsibility for any of the public service spending outrages that have been the hallmark of this Government.

The public can forgive incompetence, but it will never forgive or forget the blatant denial, haughty indifference and dismissive arrogance of the Government's approach to people's hard earned money.

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