Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was in the House last night when the Minister for Health, Deputy Leo Varadkar, made his contribution. He began by saying that he would set the context for this debate. He proceeded to turn on Fianna Fáil. I have no problem with that because, in some ways, Fianna Fáil deserves what it has got and probably a lot more. However, the context is a little different because it is the recent years of this Government's term and decisions taken by it or its agents with public moneys, and IBRC was public money. It is in the interests of the Irish taxpayer and of ordinary people who have suffered the consequences of recent years to know what decisions are being taken on their behalf with their money. If it is decided to write-down €1 million, €2 million or €3 million, they are entitled to know for what reason and whether it was in their interests. If it is decided to make sweetheart deals or deals of any type with their moneys, then they are entitled to know. What we now have is a discussion around the motion which we did not need to have. This could have been teased out, as was attempted by my party leader, Deputy Adams, by our finance spokesperson, Deputy Pearse Doherty, by Deputy Catherine Murphy and quite a number of others, over the past number of months. What they asked is exactly what the Minister promised in an election not so long ago - at this stage, it is over four years ago - that a new era had dawned, that this new Government would be transparent, that we would be entitled to find out what was happening with public moneys and that the era of the cute hoorism of the previous Government and everything that went with it was over. Backbenchers and opposition Deputies, in particular, were forced to extract information not by means of parliamentary questions, because most of those received obscure or irrelevant answers, but through freedom of information requests. Thankfully, once again this Parliament is being served by whistleblowers who have exposed deals that are not in the public interest and about which the Department of Finance had major concerns in terms of the probity of the deals.

To explain the context again, this is in an era when people are languishing on trolleys or in seats, as in the case of Beaumont Hospital which I attended recently with mother. Instead of trolleys, it has 20 seats because 20 trolleys will not fit in the accident and emergency department. This is in an era when we have the highest number of homeless people and nearly half a million people have emigrated in the past ten years. That is the context. They are the people whose money the Minister has been playing with, or has allowed others to play with without any recourse to this House. The Minister was brought kicking and screaming to this motion which does not go far enough. This did not end in February 2013; it is still happening today. If we decide to have an inquiry, then all transactions must be included. Those decisions are affecting the public purse and the future because any tax foregone or any write-down means that money is not available for other services. The decisions to write-down, whether €100 million, €200 million or €1 billion, all mean that money is not available for public service. The Minister might stand over that, which is his right and his decision, but those of us on this side of the House have a right to question whether that was the right decision. The Minister has tried to obstruct us in that regard. The other big promise the Minister made at the time the Government was elected was that the old boys' network, the cute hoorism, was gone-----

See this speech in context