Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

That falls far short of what I was told here with regard to it having had full scrutiny; it had not. The issues include 50 bank accounts; €125,000 collected from the leasing of farmland by the Office of Public Works that went into the restaurant account; and €400,000 transferred from the bar to keep the restaurant running. We have a right to expect higher standards of the people who are supposed to enforce the law. They are not above the law, and it was for that reason that the article written by John Mooney jumped out at me, so to speak. That is why I pursued it. I should have been entitled to receive an accurate reply and not be dismissed and told that there had been full scrutiny. I read the Tánaiste's replies to the parliamentary questions and the Official Report of the debate in the Seanad. It included one sentence on this in what was a wide-ranging debate. We have to be sure that we can trust the replies we get in this House. The matter will go now to the Committee of Public Accounts and to the justice committee also.

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