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

I welcome this Bill. I disagree with white-collar crime but I do not believe this legislation will make any difference. Ten years ago, the Government bailed out the banks at a cost of €64 billion. According to the Comptroller and Auditor General, this continues to cost us €3 million per week. To put this in context, the pandemic unemployment payment, which the Government has continuously tried to cut on the basis that we cannot afford it, has cost us €5 billion. I believe that if there was another banking crisis tomorrow and we had available to us the evidence we had in regard to what happened in the first crisis those involved would again get off scot-free and nobody would be prosecuted. In January, a mother in Cork who was caught shoplifting was sentenced to four months in prison while others such as bankers, developers and speculators scammed this State out of a fortune and robbed the future of many of us, our children and future generations and got away scot-free. It is beyond belief.

Nothing has changed. Since this Government came to power it has been plagued by scandal after scandal. Developers and big business are still top priority for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. There is not a Deputy in this Chamber who does not know what happened when the banks had the ear of Government. Every day, I speak to people who have been harmed. Yet again, it appears developers have the ear of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. He is proceeding with a shared equity scheme despite his departmental officials telling him that the only people who will benefit from it are developers. Has this Government learned nothing down through the years?

We are one year on from a momentous election in which people came out in their droves to vote for change. They wanted change and they voted for it. They voted for an end to parties that the rich and powerful can influence. They voted to end the bank bail-outs and developer hand-outs. What we have seen in the last 12 months, shows Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will never change. There needs to be real opposition to hold them to account. The money wasted and exposed almost weekly is a scandal. This is not change. It is more of the same. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have never held each other to account. Sinn Féin will not let them away with that. We will hold the Government parties to account.

I share the frustrations of Deputy Connolly in regard to the allocation of speaking time. Earlier today I wanted to raise a serious issue with the Taoiseach. On five occasions I have asked the Taoiseach in this House about the closure of SouthDoc in Blackpool in Cork. This evening, we are discussing fraud and crime. SouthDoc is paid €7.3 million per annum to provide an out-of-hours GP service for the people of Cork North Central and Kerry. It has not provided that service since last March. I have asked the Taoiseach, the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, the Department of Health, the HSE and SouthDoc why when we are paying €7.3 million for a service the people of Cork North Central are not getting that service.

This is happening during the time of a pandemic. A number of weeks ago, a man had to walk from Farranree, on one side of Cork city, out to the SouthDoc facility on Kinsale Road because he did not have the money for a taxi and he was too afraid to get a bus because of the number of people testing positive for Covid at the time. That is some distance. I spoke to a woman with a disabled son and two other children who had to leave her home in Blarney, drive past the SouthDoc building in Blackpool, which should be open but is closed, and out to the SouthDoc premises on Kinsale Road. She had to wait there for 40 minutes with her children because her husband was at work. This debate is about fraud and white-collar crime. What the SouthDoc service is doing in Cork is wrong and it is in breach of its service level agreement. Something needs to be done about it.

As I said, this debate is about crime and particular technicalities, but I have outlined the real facts about what is happening for people in this country. I hope they will be dealt with for once and for all. The SouthDoc facility in Blackpool was closed last March. For 11 months, the State has paid for a service that is not available. That is fraud.

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