Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This motion raises two important issues from my point of view. The first of these is the issue of confidentiality and accountability on the part of Government. This brings me to what I want to see more of in Irish public life, namely, more openness and transparency at government level. The public want and are entitled to more openness, accountability and transparency on the part of the Government. We inherited a Victorian approach to politics. I want to see a change that includes more open discussion of and debate on how the Government spends public money in advance of decisions we make. We hide behind commercial sensitivity and confidentiality clauses in contracts. As a former Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, I have seen many cases where those who spend public money have not been held publicly accountable.

I can give examples of many of the public private partnerships where contracts can run for up to 25 years. Confidentiality clauses in these contracts are preventing openness in discussion and transparency in accounting. In most cases, these conditions are not justified from the taxpayer's point of view. The same can be said of the national broadband plan.

We are all familiar with our annual budget day announcements when the only surprise is when there is something in the Minister’s statement that was not published in the morning newspapers. We are having a debate here on openness. We need more openness, not less. I want to see more transparency. The culture of confidentiality in public life is excessive in Ireland.

The second issue I see in this debate is political gamesmanship. We are the middle of a Covid-19 pandemic in which almost 2000 people have died. Many people are suffering, with hundreds of thousands of people on the pandemic unemployment payment and wage subsidy schemes. Businesses are struggling but the people of Ireland are strong. If the Opposition was sincere about accountability, we would have a debate on that issue. Instead, it chose the nuclear option of bringing down a Minister and, by extension, this Government, which would result in a general election in the middle of this unprecedented Covid-19 crisis. All it wants is disruption. Its attempt to turn Dáil Éireann into a reality television show, such as the “The Jerry Springer Show" or “The Jeremy Kyle Show”, will not succeed tonight.

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