Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I certainly support Deputy Ó Snodaigh. It is hard to say that we are debating this here. Debating is about scrutinising and passing it. The Minister said it is before committees and always accountable. That €2 million can be in this area and we do not know what it is about.

I am picking up on what the Minister said in reply to me when I spoke to him first about the carry-overs and the overruns and then the lack of money for roads and the lack of money to continue planning and development. The Minister tried to say it was carried over to next year. How come they cannot get the €3 million to continue the planning and design of the road from Cloghabreedy, outside Cahir, on to Clonmel, Kilsheelan, Carrick-on-Suir to County Kilkenny and onto Waterford and indeed Rosslare? Why carry over the money if they cannot get the money? This does not make sense. Similarly with pavements and overlays in Fermoy. Many road projects have been cut in County Tipperary this year. The county council was never as scarce of money as it is now.

I was canvassing outside Carrick-on-Suir two weeks ago. The overseer in Carrick-on-Suir just happened to be finishing up. He is a fine, excellent public servant and hard-working man. He said to look at his depot, that he had not a bucket of tar, black top or cement, that he had nothing. He said in all his 35 years in the county council he was never as starved of resources. There was a lovely clean yard and nothing inside. That was in the middle of October. What happens if we get floods and bad weather? They have nothing. We are handing back large amounts of money. The Minister says it is not handed back as it will carry over to next year. In that case, why are we not allowed to spend it this year?

The bridge in Ardfinnan is closed for ten years now, waiting for funding. It was damaged by the flood and we have not a shilling. They are left with one-way traffic, with traffic lights on it. We have tried every which way. About €1.5 million was spent on consultants but no bridge. Cad a dhéanamaid feasta gan droichead?

A local man, Stefan Grace, is a great orator and songwriter. We often hear the song Bridge over Troubled Waters, but this is a troubled bridge over tranquil waters. It has been like that for ten years. As importantly, the Minister said to me about the funding that he cannot account for the costs and the cost increase to private industry. I put that back directly on the Minister because I am in that business myself. The Minister added greatly to the cost. Costs have gone up by about 30% for the county council to get in contractors. However, the Minister has added directly to that cost with the carbon tax. He mentioned aggregate and concrete. The people affected by mica were outside the gate today, trying to meet some of the Government. It is not just mica, it is defective housing. The Minister added directly to that cost to pay for a scheme that is not fit for purpose, by putting a 5% levy on every metre of concrete. That adds to the cost. That levy should have been put on the suppliers of the concrete. Why should the taxpayers be made to pony up here and take the bill again? The taxpayers are great people and they carry wide loads. However, as in the time when we had horses tackled to the cart behind them, the taxpayer is beaten down from carrying the can for all these overruns, all the hookery that went on and the defective concrete when it should have been tested. People want to build their houses in good faith. I built my own house, self-employed and I depended on the materials and good contractors. I got them and my house is still standing thank God.

There is now a scheme designed for the people affected by mica and the other people, but it does not deal with the foundations. It is pure lunacy to think that they can get funding to build on top of a foundation. In my business, if you come to dig a foundation on any site or area and you find loose ground, sand or gravel, you have to put in a raft foundation, to make sure you have a good solid base on which to put a house. Now the Government is funding a scheme for people unfortunate enough to find their houses are crumbling, and the costs of the foundation are not covered. Whoever came up with this or whatever engineers advised the Government to do this, it is utter insanity. It is even in the Bible, if you build your house on sand you will not have a house. Houses cannot be built, with taxpayers’ money and the levy that people are made to pay that is driving up the price of concrete, when there is no proper foundation. Anybody who knows anything about building knows this house would not stand long if the proper foundation was not there. The most important part of any building is the foundation, the same as in any organisation. For building it has to be a proper foundation. It is the same concrete, with the mica, with the defect, that has gone into the foundations as has gone into the rest of the house. It does not make any sense. Any lay person without any technical or engineering expertise would know that.

In that case, I want to rebut what the Minister said that he cannot control the cost. He can. He directly contributed to the cost increases by putting on carbon tax for ten years, passed in the budget. We will not even have a vote on this increase on the carbon tax. Then he put a levy on the concrete, instead of making the big people pay, like Cement Roadstone Holdings, CRH, that are multibillion euro companies that have been found guilty of all kinds of trading irregularities in many states, in Canada and the US. However, here in Ireland they walk off into the sunset.

Those people were out here again today, forced to come again to the Dáil to beg people to try to do something for them. However, it is folly to have a scheme to build a house on quicksand. It is the same as quicksand. The walls are crumbling and the same concrete went into the foundation. I hate to say it because I have trouble with my eyes, but a blind person could see and know that you cannot build the house on top of a crumbling foundation.

It is a shocking indictment. It is more waste on a large scale to fund these buildings - they need to be funded - without funding the foundations. I do not know how anyone could draw up a scheme that would fund the building and would not fund the foundation. The foundation is the most basic part. I lay it squarely on the Government’s door regarding the cost increases. I cannot understand why this money – the Minister said it is not going back; it is going into next year – cannot be given to the road projects that are stalled now. The surfaces are creaking for want of money. In my own town of Clonmel, the pavements are broken up and busted and the whole town is in a shameful state. Why put it into next year? It is only November. I know it is for a special reason this year in spite of the fact that the Taoiseach kept insisting the Government would go full term. We are expected to have these appropriations.

I have to forcefully rebut what the Minister said that they are accountable and that the Government is scrutinised. I cannot yet answer who authorised, oversaw and signed the procurement documents for the bike shed. I cannot explain to the public who ask me at the doors tomorrow evening who authorised and who was the procurement officer for the hut that cost €1.1 million. I am tired of talking to people about it. They are aghast and shocked at the runaway cost of the children’s hospital. Who signed the contract, only the Minister’s own Taoiseach who was the Minister at the time? Now I am told, to add insult to injury – I do not have this fully corroborated – that a similar contract is being used for the maternity hospital. How could that happen? I think Einstein said the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again and to expect a different result. Are Department officials and their multiple advisers unable or incapable of having a contract that is fit for purpose? There is plenty of expertise out there. When former Deputy Wallace was here, we spoke the whole time about a hybrid kind of contract that was a disaster. It was an open chequebook. The result so many years later is that we have no children’s hospital. There are sick children waiting for it. Is the same thing going to be done now with the national maternity hospital? The lunatics are definitely running this asylum.

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