Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We will be supporting the Bill. As the Minister of State said it is a very technical Bill, but it is important. The recent discussions around a potential election highlighted the importance of this Bill. They also perhaps highlighted an issue as to whether or not this is the most effective way to be doing business in this day and age. We bring this Bill in on the very last day of the session and if it does not pass many things will fall. From the point of view of prudence and keeping our legislation up to date it might be worth looking at.

The Minister of State mentioned some of his priorities, including health, education and housing, and used the usual phrase of "record spending". There are record problems, in housing in particular. If we are to do anything in 2018, we should build houses. Spending money on HAP is not adding anything extra to the stock. We can talk about extra money and record amounts of money, but at the end of the day we still have thousands of children in emergency accommodation and people dying on our streets. If we are here again this time next year talking about record allocations for housing when it is not making a blind bit of difference on the ground then there is no real point in being here.

There was a story this morning about the Central Bank spending €135,000 on a lighting fixture for its new headquarters in the docklands. It shows that a sense of extravagance is creeping in around the use of taxpayers' money again. It needs to be cut out now and a clear signal should go to all Government Departments and agencies. That kind of extravagance has no place. We have problems in health, housing and education. That kind of extravagance is completely ridiculous and is an insult to people on housing lists, health waiting lists and people who are waiting on payments the length and breadth of the country. The Minister needs to send a very strong signal from the Department of Finance that this cannot happen.

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