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

In terms of the contribution of the OPW to climate change, obviously much needs to be done. I need to talk parochially, in terms of my own constituency. I ask the Minister to comment on some contributions by the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, about a fortnight ago in answering to Deputy Feighan, my constituency colleague, about Sligo Garda station. As the Minister knows, it was part of the Government’s plan to build a new station there, to the extent that it paid €1.35 million for a site.

Last December, the Minister for Justice and Equality confirmed in the Dáil that it would go ahead and it was part of a public private partnership with Macroom, Clonmel and Sligo. As the Minister will know, it is an environmental disaster and I doubt it even has an energy rating for how bad it is because it goes back over a century. Can the Minister confirm, and I hope this is correct, that the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, in some way and perhaps inadvertently, misled the Dáil when he said that the Commissioner had decided that this Garda station was now going to be done up in situinstead of building a new one? As I said, the Minister for Justice and Equality confirmed here on 19 December to the then Deputy, Tony McLoughlin, that it was going ahead but that seemed to change when answering to Deputy Feighan in recent weeks. Can the Minister outline what financial reason underpins this in terms of resources being scarce, €1.35 million being spent on a site and the need clearly established for a new station with Macroom and Clonmel? What implications does this have, if it is true, for the projects in Clonmel and Macroom going ahead and for the public private partnership? On the basis that there may be a new Government of several parties in the coming weeks, will the Minister be receptive to the approaches of myself and Deputies Feighan, Harkin and Martin Kenny in our demands to see that station built?

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