Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I give a warm welcome to the pupils from Greystones Community National School who are in the Gallery.

For the second time in two months, the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, will make a clarifying statement in the House later today. In March, he made a statement about a planning application for his family home. The Minister of State said he was entirely satisfied that the planning application was in order, but questions remain outstanding. We still do not know why the incorrect address was recorded on that application. The Minister of State has repeatedly refused to answers in that regard. Questions have now arisen about his decision, when serving as a county councillor in Limerick, to agree the sale of land that was later bought by his wife. The Minister of State released a short statement on Monday evening that failed to deal with the critical issue. His wife's solicitor had written to the council expressing her interest in buying the land a few short weeks before the Minister of State, who, as already indicated, was a councillor at the time, attended a meeting of the Bruff local area committee, which agreed to put the land up for sale.

I am not pre-empting what the Minister of State is going to say later, but I wonder if standards of accountability and transparency in the Government and the Tánaiste's party are slipping. When the Tánaiste sacked Deputy Cowen as Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, he said it was because the Deputy was not prepared to make any further statement or answer questions on the issue in this House. The Tánaiste clearly thought it was appropriate for Deputy Cowen to take questions on that matter in this Chamber. There is precedent for question-and-answer sessions among the Tánaiste's colleagues. The Taoiseach previously agreed to take questions on a controversy he was embroiled in and so did the Minister, Deputy McEntee. The Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, has recently done the same. However, now when the Minster of State, Deputy Niall Collins, is due to address the Dáil about a controversy for the second time in two months, the Taoiseach tells us facilitating questions from the Opposition would be akin to a kangaroo court.

The Tánaiste and the other Coalition leaders have given the Minister of State their full support. All have said that no laws were broken and, in effect, that there is nothing to see here. If the matter is so straightforward, why refuse the Opposition the opportunity to question the Minister of State? It is the job of Opposition to hold Ministers and Ministers of State to account. The Opposition has a really important role to play in our democracy by doing so.

My questions are as follows. Why is there one rule for the Minster of State and another for other members of the Government and the Tanaiste's party? Does the Tánaiste agree with the Taoiseach that question-and-answer sessions turn the Dáil into a kangaroo court?

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