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

By his answer the Minister has massively devalued this Chamber and citizens outside who are seeking answers. I asked him if he was aware of the breakdown in communications and the problems arising.

The Minister has not even attempted to say he is aware of it. If we cannot understand and critique the problems, how are we supposed to fix them?

On "Morning Ireland" yesterday, Paddy Cosgrave went even further. He mentioned the €800,000 received in terms of hush money. Essentially, he said the Web Summit was supposed to lavish praise on the Government for what it did but for four years behind the scenes, he went back and forth to try to push the Government time and again to realise the opportunity and make sure things were fixed. Shockingly, he said Ministers were only interested in attending on an invite basis and only to have photographs taken. He also said that Enterprise Ireland had not engaged properly in the process. He said it invested money, created logos and created spin but had not used the event properly. What physical steps will the Minister take to reach out and fix this problem? We may have lost the 2016 Web Summit but what steps will he take to ensure the 2017 Web Summit is in Dublin? I ask him to answer the question directly.

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