Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

I asked questions under Standing Order 31 and I hope the Taoiseach will avail of the opportunity now to clear up the issues I raised. We have tribunals, but it is important to remember they had to be set up in many cases because questions were not answered in the Dáil. Let us not repeat the mistakes of the past.

There has been a holding back of information on matters dating back as far as 1999 when I asked the Taoiseach if such payments and transactions were unorthodox, unusual or irregular. The fact he does not think they are raises the image of a GUBU situation, something we have come across before. We need to move beyond that and begin to see life as clearly as it should be seen, especially for a Taoiseach and somebody in high office.

The questions asked on Tuesday and Wednesday have not been fully answered. Will the Taoiseach tell us, as I asked under Standing Order 31, whether the house was bought at market value and all taxes due paid? If it was bought at anything less than market value, that would be tantamount to a donation. Can we have clarity on that issue?

Is there anything else the Taoiseach thinks we should know or anything else he wants to put into the public domain? The situation is becoming tiresome. We need to deal with other issues such as housing, health, education, child care and energy etc. and the sooner we can get back to dealing with the business we were elected to do, the better. However, we need first to have standards in Government over which we can all stand and of which we can be proud. That is not the case as we speak.

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