Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----for making the most significant commitment to our nation's sick children and their families in the history of the State. This is being done for cheap political gains for the Members opposite. Our country is at one of the most crucial junctures of modern times and needs the full and undivided attention of this Parliament to resolve it.

I have closely monitored this matter over the last few weeks, and the thing lacking most in the whole conversation is context. The Members opposite laid a charge against the Minister, Deputy Harris, of having no respect for public funds and squandering money. This charge is being laid down by a party that sunk the price of over 15 children's hospitals into one defunct bank of the elite and wealthy, with not one penny ever to be seen again. That bank, of course, was Anglo Irish Bank. That is the definition of squandering public money. By contrast, the Minister, Deputy Harris, has invested one fifteenth of the money wasted in Anglo Irish Bank in a hospital that will serve our nation's sick children for 100 years to come. This is an investment of which I, as a Fine Gael Minister of State, am extremely proud. I also remind members of matters historical. We spend the cost of one children's hospital ever four months servicing interest on debt from the mismanagement of the economy when Members opposite were in charge of the purse strings. I would call that the definition of squandering money. We did not get it right on day one, and we certainly have underestimated the price of this once in a generation bespoke and specialist facility-----

See this speech in context