Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not want to trivialise this matter either. None of this debate is personal. I learned this from the master in the Seanad. He would not tolerate this kind of response in those days and I certainly cannot tolerate it today. The Minister's new-found interest in value-for-money is admirable, but how many business cases does one need? Who is prepared to take a decision and back the facts and say, look, the issue is clear, a blind man can see and experience the compute misery of all of us. We are kicking it around the administrative merry-go-round time and again. What it boils down to is that Ministers have become non-executive directors. They turn up at the ceremonial occasions to say a few words, to cut the tape and be in the photograph but when it comes to running the country, it is on e-tenders. The Minister was referring to a business case on such a date. Which one is he referring to? Was that the one three years ago, the updated one, or is it the one that has not been replied to yet because the closing date is not until 9 December at 12 o'clock?

We have had this with the ordering of carriages too, with these 41 mythical characters. The Minister must be expecting the polar express to pull into town over Christmas because the reality is that I do not even know if the 41 have been ordered yet. There are 60 to 80 used ones to be leased and are supposedly to be arriving next February and I have not heard much about that lately. It must have run aground too.

We are back to value-for-money and the business case. We need a third business case. Is it third time lucky? Do we need three business cases before we take a decision to do what any five-eight person knows needs to be done? We need to expand this. Have we not got the money? Who is taking the decision? Why is he putting this out to tender? How much will that cost? That is more money wasted that could be much-better spent elsewhere.

Returning to value-for-money, I apologise and I know this will annoy the Minister, but I have to give him the kick on this. I do not remember the business case on Stepaside Garda station when I was down at the Committee of Public Accounts, as the assistant commissioner responsible for Dublin said, no, that was not a priority for them. Other matters are. We know that we are coming into the season when the Santa hat will be donned and the Minister will be waving to the traffic with the lights turned on in Stepaside.

Meanwhile, those people getting the bus, if they manage to get stuffed on and have enough assistance to get pushed into it, will now leave it to the Minister. We are going to get value-for-money and in 100 years time we may have a public transportation system that we deserve, when we have people who are prepared to take decisions, based on the facts rather than being put around the administrative merry-go-round with no solutions.

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