Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

The Comptroller and Auditor General reckons it costs approximately €1 million per year to store them, but I read that the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, has now relocated most of them to a central location. Did we have to buy out the leases on the premises where the machines are being stored?

I saw the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Deputy Noel Dempsey, emerge sheepishly at a breakfast he bought for the esteemed members of the press last week in an attempt to induce them to accept his Ladybird fictional guide to the policies on this side of the House and to lecture us on economic competence. This is the same Minister who spent €62 million on machines that only Robert Mugabe would be interested in purchasing.

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