Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

I will begin by addressing the same issue as my colleague, Deputy Wall. The criticisms made in this report with regard to nursing home subventions require urgent action. A family may qualify for sufficient subvention to fill the gap between a pension and the cost of a nursing home in one HSE area, while failing to do so in another area. In my area of the mid-west, there is a shortage of public beds and families are put to the pin of their collars to meet the gap. Elderly people are put under all sorts of pressure and, in many cases, the money has gradually dwindled even after the family home has been sold. According to the report, the system is totally inequitable. That urgently needs to be corrected because I would not be surprised if a case was taken to the Equality Authority on grounds of age discrimination.

While the Comptroller and Auditor General has to pass judgment on mistakes made in the past, it is up to the Government to learn from them. For that reason, Fine Gael and the Labour Party have proposed a clear line of responsibility with regard to the spending of taxpayers' money so that we can, for example, spend it on building schools and providing for children in the education system. I raise that example because, in terms of the percentage of GDP spent on education, we are currently 29th out of 30 OECD countries.

Other speakers referred to the €29.9 million spent on Thornton Hall for a prison site which, it appears, could have been purchased for much less if the Government had acted differently when it acquired the land. We must learn from that and ensure we do not waste money in that way.

Under the system of funding from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, there is not enough money to appoint the number of probation officers and so forth required to implement the Children Act and to make families responsible for young offenders. There is not enough money for youth encounter programmes, which are also under the auspices of that Department. These programmes offer an opportunity to address young offenders at an early stage and put them on the correct path. Those areas are starved of funding yet we waste €29.9 million on a site for a prison that could have been bought more cheaply.

Lessons must be learned across the Departments about acquiring land for public purposes. In the education sector, for example, land is bought for building schools long after the need for it has been identified. That is the wrong way to approach it. We must have new systems whereby the Department of Education and Science acquires land for schools when it knows there will be a growth in population. It must work with local authorities in this regard and ensure it acquires the land well in advance of when the need arises. Rather than simply identifying a site, it should acquire the land.

I am glad the Minister of State, Deputy Parlon, is present, given that he is responsible for the Office of Public Works. The Department of Education and Science is seeking a site in my constituency for a gaelscoil. Everybody knows how urgently the Department needs the site and how long the school has been waiting for it so the Department will pay a great deal more for it than if it had bought a site five or six years ago. It was known at that stage that a site would be needed. A similar situation occurred in Laytown. Local representatives there have told me the Department could have got a site more cheaply if it had moved earlier. Now, however, all the landowners know the Department urgently needs a site for a school so the prices have increased.

Lessons must be learned from the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. I commend the proposals from the Labour Party and Fine Gael regarding what they will do in government about public spending.

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