Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is €6.644 million unspent by the Garda Síochána on its capital programme. It is no wonder that we have a crime issue when voted money from this House is not being utilised.

I welcome this short debate in order to put those matters on the public record because that is the information the Minister of State chose not to mention. That is why we are here. We agree with that money being spent in 2016 - we have always supported that, but my principal objection was to a guillotine this motion without any debate.

I will be amused to listen to Sinn Féin's contribution on the issue. As the Minister of State rightly said, the list for each Department was published in Schedule 2 of the Appropriation Act 2015 which we debated and on which I called a vote. We voted against the Appropriation Bill 2015 in the Dáil before Christmas because we did not agree with the Government's choices of expenditure during the year. However, Sinn Féin was happy to vote with the Government on that and to vote for the deferred surrender of this €111 million on that occasion. I cannot see how it will have any problems with it today, given that Sinn Féin voted for this deferred surrender in the week before Christmas. I will listen with interest to see what its Members say today having done something different then.

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