Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will clarify something that the Minister of State perhaps does not know or has forgotten. Was it not a Minister from his party who gave banks 20 years tax-free on their profits? Perhaps I am wrong but I do not think so. The Minister of State can check that out. Cork City Council has increased the local property tax by 7.5% which should bring in an additional €1.5 million but there will still be a shortfall of €2.5 million. The question for the Minister of State and the Government is whether they will betray local authorities this year, as they have done for years. There have been no traffic calming measures in Cork city for the past seven or eight years due to the lack of funding from central government. That is only one of a list of issues. Are we going to close libraries and cut back funding for parks and playgrounds? The Minister of State has a lot of questions to answer.

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