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

The doubling of the cost of modular homes for Ukrainians is another example of the Government's incompetence and waste of public money. The Taoiseach will remember that when this news first broke, all of those in government feigned shock. How could this have happened, they asked. However, yesterday, at the Committee of Public Accounts, we got the answer to that as the head of the Office of Public Works stated clearly that it had warned the Government that the sites selected for these modular homes were not suitable and the servicing of these sites would add an extra €291,000 to the cost of each unit. We now know that not alone is the Government happy to waste the public's money, but it is happy to ignore warnings that it is wasting the public's money and just push ahead. The catalogue of waste sends the signal that the Government is there for the taking and, of course, when a Government is there for the taking, it is the taxpayer who is taken for a ride. Can the Taoiseach explain why the Government ignored the warnings it was given, stood back and allowed the cost of these modular homes to double?

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