Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am quite amazed that the Minister has not addressed the Web Summit issue. He mentioned it in three sentences in a very generalised fashion. The release of emails between the Government and Mr. Paddy Cosgrave gives a rare insight into how the Government operates. Mr. Cosgrave has repeatedly said all he wants to do is keep the Web Summit in Ireland. That was his objective. All that it was necessary to do was to ensure proper traffic management and public transport plans were in place. People who had spent money to get to Dublin could not even get to the conference centre owing to the fact that there was total gridlock. Mr. Cosgrave also wanted to make sure the hotel industry was not gouging, at a rate of 600%, in order that people could afford to come. These were simple issues with which to deal, but none of them seems to have been addressed by the Government.

As regards the process in which Mr. Cosgrave was involved with the Government, the emails show a laissez-faireattitude, a lack of engagement and dysfunction at the heart of government in dealing with this issue. I simply ask the Minister to answer these questions. Was he aware of the breakdown in communications? Was he aware of the role of the enterprise agencies involved? If so, what steps did he take to fix it?

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