Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

When the Taoiseach met Arlene Foster, did he get any idea that she appreciates the gravity of the scandal surrounding cash for ash and the renewable heat initiative? Today, we see that the names of 1,000 beneficiaries of this botched scheme are to be published, although 300 are being held back by a court order. The Queen's counsel, QC, for the Department, who was pressing for the names to be released, described the scandal as a major depletion of the public purse for years to come. If fact, it is reckoned that £500 million of the public purse will be forfeited to those who benefit from this scandal. That sum is almost equivalent to the amount of money taken in cutbacks from the people in Northern Ireland in terms of job losses and services cut under the Fresh Start arrangement. Does the Taoiseach agree that, regardless of the outcome of the election, we cannot return to the old type of Stormont that was being used as a slush fund, particularly for the DUP but also for others? When these names are revealed in the coming days, they will include owners of poultry farms, mushroom farms and so forth.

Does the Taoiseach agree that the Stormont slush fund type of behaviour, which we are well used to in this part of the country, the corruption of golden circles and elites looking after themselves and their party connections, is not the type of Northern Ireland we need after the election? Whatever arrangement we come to, there must be a new type of politics in the North, as there must be in this part of the country. It will not be represented by the same old Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

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