Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Could the Minister of State perhaps deal with people in the property market who are aware of the enormous surge in the prices of practically everything from garden sheds to fine properties? This is an historic property on Cathal Brugha Street and the Minister of State is hiding behind this cloak of anonymity in the context of commercial sensitivity. However, she Minister is accountable to the Dáil. She is absolutely accountable to the Dáil if her departmental officials and DIT have mysteriously decided to reduce the price of a major public building behind a building in respect of which a very large sale price has just been secured. The Minister of State is refusing to be accountable to the Dáil as to how this catastrophic fall in the offer price - money that will ultimately go into the public coffers and help education in this country - came about. How is it that she and the Minister, who is so careful with the euros and cents, standing over this and citing commercial sensitivity as the reason they will not be accountable to the Dáil?

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