Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Minister to come clean on this. He said on Sunday, and I heard him myself, that this was all done under darkness. I have photographs supplied to me showing that it was broad daylight, thankfully, with six men well clad in jackets. All they are missing is a "Paschal Donohoe No. 1" label on them. They did not have that in the photographs, so obviously they were hiding something. The Minister must surely have been aware that the Designer Group was working on substantial Government contracts for the Department of Social Protection at the time it was engaged in erecting election posters for him. Did he not question whether the crew that rigged and derigged the posters over several weeks may have been contracted to work on Government contracts at the same time, instead of jogging around putting up and taking down posters? It could quite easily happen. I think there were three vans mentioned. Two men and a van is fine but not six men and a van. First, they would not have the capacity to travel in it and second, they would have needed a van for each two. It stretches credulity that we are expected to believe this cock-and-bull story that they were around there just taking photographs and hanging around.

Will the Minister accept that he was a member of the Government that appointed a certain Mr. Stone to the Land Development Agency board and to the north inner city task force? It has been said that the said gentleman does not take a fee for his LDA role, and we appreciate that. Nonetheless, as a property developer sitting on the board of a semi-State agency with an annual budget of €2.5 billion, it is nice to be in the know and to be in the golden circle. This is what I see the problems as being. There are huge issues here. Deputy Donohoe was the Minister in charge of SIPO. He had a chance in November. I have had this information since a week before the Taoiseach changed office. Did the Minister inform the now Taoiseach, then Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, of this ongoing issue and the complaint against him to SIPO before he reappointed him as Minister during the revolving chairs swap-over? There are a number of questions like that. From a political judgment it is the least you would expect he would have done and the least, I am sure, he would expect or demand from the Minister. There are so many questions and it is a pity they are not answered. The Minister will not have time to answer them here. I deliberately did not do anything with the information because there was a complaint being investigated by SIPO and that could be made against any of us at any time. It is there to do its job and we must give it all the powers and assistance it needs.

It stretches the imagination that the Minister is going to answer questions in the morning regarding SIPO. He has recused himself from dealing with issues while the investigation is going on but it is absolutely farcical in the extreme that he is taking questions in the morning. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael McGrath, is otherwise engaged in Davos, coming and going from that great big party. Deputy Donohoe will miss out on it this year but will hopefully get there next year with his well-heeled friends. This is very serious. It reminds us of the cheques from Ben Dunne - the big fella - to build houses or build whatever. We thought we had moved on from that. We should have moved on from that and we must move on from that.

We saw figures from other Deputies in the same constituency and their costs for posters were furnished to SIPO in the complaint. They do not come anywhere near the value for money the Minister got. It must be magic erection and taking down of posters because we all know how much it costs. Some of us have had to do them ourselves and with our family and friends and whatever. We all know you cannot have companies doing them for you, especially if they are not declared, because those are the simple rules of engagement. We all know the Minister had so many posters in that election. Most people struggled because it was a sudden election but the Minister was all ready to go. It is great to have friends in good places. Then he had teams of men out by day. He said on Sunday that it was night-time but my photographs show a nice sunny sky over Dublin Central. That is the first thing the Minister can correct the record on. It was happening during the day. They were obviously being engaged by their employer. If they were not working for their employer, who were they working for? I have nothing against the men. They were doing what they were told as employees but you never know when some of them might start singing. They do not want to be the stool pigeons here. They are people we have to respect too and in their jobs fulfilling their roles and their orders. Often we say to break your boss before you break his orders but this one has a long way to run if the Minister does not answer these questions and answer them honestly.

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