Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Minister wasted €60 million of taxpayer's money buying electronic voting machines, which have never been used, which cannot be used and which are now in storage. I recall the day well. He did that by taking a decisive ministerial decision. It is amazing how this incompetent, wasteful Government can take decisive decisions doing daft things but the Government parties can take no decision when it comes to trying to save the jobs of people in SRT, Cadburys, Waterford Glass, Dell and other businesses that cannot get money from the banks into which they have put billions of euro of taxpayer's money. The basic problem in this country is we have a Government that does not care about jobs or people who are losing their jobs and it has not lifted its finger to protect jobs in any of these businesses.

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