Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Regional Group for bringing this Bill forward. The Bill provides that each Minister shall report annually on large capital expenditure in his or her Department five years after the expenditure has occurred. Infrastructure Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil promised not only five years ago, but decades ago, still has not been done. Reporting on something not done after five years is one thing, but another thing is reporting on something not done after decades of promises from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, failure of infrastructure projects and spending money on basic set-up of projects and then letting the project go. First they spend millions on setting up projects and doing all the analysis on it, then they do not fund it afterwards. How much taxpayer's money is wasted by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael on projects?

I have mentioned here before infrastructure in Limerick that has been promised for decades, including sewerage and water systems, that has never been fulfilled by the Government. Askeaton sewerage system was promised 43 years ago. Now raw sewage goes into the Shannon, and the Government is talking about water quality. All infrastructure projects the Government promised when it came to Dublin and the Cabinet were covered by people who forgot about anyone outside of Dublin. What has the Government done? It has destroyed Dublin as well because people in Dublin and their children cannot come home because it made it too expensive by never investing in infrastructure outside of Dublin.

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