Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Nice try. That is a nice try at a distraction. If the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has a very faulty memory, then I have to say the Taoiseach is of Olympic-level competence in trying to breed further distractions. This is what has happened. Every rule in the book has been broken. Spending limits, I suspect, have been breached. Certainly, a corporate donation was made by somebody who was not registered as a corporate donor.

But here is the rub: a very wealthy individual who is a beneficiary of State contracts and who is appointed to State boards is a donor to the then Minister for Finance. That is a matter of public interest, but the deliberate concealment of that, election after election, is a real cause for public worry. There is a need for accountability on this. The Taoiseach says the Minister will come before the House again, I imagine to spin the same cock-and-bull story he spun last week. I put it to the Taoiseach that it is not credible for him, on his own part, to attempt to stand over these donations that were undeclared and the cock-and-bull story his colleague has fabricated, after the fact, to try to cover his tracks.

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