Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would describe wasteful spending of public money as sinful spending of public money. There is no way to accept it but it has become accepted and has become the norm. The contract for the national children's hospital was wildly inadequate. It was like a piece of string for BAM and now we are going to do the same with the national maternity hospital. The bike shed and the security cabin are the ones we know about but what about the ones we do not know about?

I have to raise the case of a local mother with two children with special needs who is still struggling to secure a school place to her youngest son. Sabrina Kelly's son, Josh, has been failed by the National Council for Special Education and the Department of Education. Five-year-old Josh was due to start school in September and was eventually offered a place at Powerstown National School near Clonmel. However, Sabrina has said that, through no fault of the school staff, it is not suitable. More people contacted my office today. People contact me daily. We saw the scoliosis people here last week.

We and the public have to grapple to understand waste when we have cases like that. Every TD in this House has had them. The Taoiseach talks about them. He has met them or has been listening to their pre-budget submissions. We are failing them and here we have a waste of money - good money after bad. In olden times, 50 people who lived in the botháns and small houses believed in waste not, want not and recycled stuff. We imagine we are a world-class economy and have more money than we can handle, but we have cases like this, a lack of dentistry and people waiting years for an appointment with a doctor and going up to Belfast for cataract treatment. It is an appalling vista and successive governments have failed to change it along with successive Secretaries General, who never have to get elected and never face the people but only water their pensions. It is unacceptable but it is not going to change under the Government's watch. I do not know if it will change under the next Government but something has to happen.

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