Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am at a loss. That is all I can say at this point. I cannot understand why members of the Government come in here and oppose Bill after Bill after Bill. In my opening speech, I referred to successive Governments being careless with public money. This one is no better. I thought it might change some legislation but all it does is constantly oppose Bills we introduce. We are parliamentarians for a reason. We are elected by the people to do a job for them. We are here to do what they want. The money is not our money or the Government's money; it is the taxpayers' money. This matter needs to be addressed properly. We cannot be wasting taxpayers' money constantly.

Deputies Stanley and Nash spoke about bogus self-employers. The Minister of State tells us there is no such thing as a bogus self-employer. There is. I do not know what planet the Minister of State is living on because there are plenty of them. Deputy Stanley mentioned how many he has come across. I assure the Minister of State that Deputy Stanley is not the only one who has come across bogus self-employers. Many of us have.

Deputy Doherty spoke about value for money. The Minister of State does not care about value for money. The expenditure is considered fine because it is not his money. Deputy Cronin spoke about over-expenditure on the Sallins bypass. We should consider what the money would do. My constituency is very poverty-stricken and there is a lack of housing. There is no one to build houses and no one wants to build them. Every day, there are people in my constituency office who tell me how they cannot get houses.

I am a spokesperson for older people. Older people are living in poverty, yet it is okay to spend millions upon millions of euro without anybody being interested in where it goes. It is time that the Minister of State stood up to the plate and did what he was asked to do. It is time that he did what this country needs, made a change and looked after the public money.

As somebody who worked as a shop steward many years ago for people who lived on very low wages, I believe it is time that the living wage was implemented in this country and that the Government got off its backside and did it.

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