Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Ryan McKeowan and his partner here. I have no doubt they will sit here one day. They are welcome to Leinster House.

I turned on the TV recently in my house and purely by chance saw a rerun of "Oprah". I immediately saw what happened in the programme for Government. Instead of it being "You get a car, you get a car", it was "You get a ministry, you get a ministry, you get a ministry and you get a ministry". What a fantastic day to give out Ministries.

Our Taoiseach told us that the Government needs to appoint more Ministers because we have a growing population, but we have a population of 5.1 million. There are 174 TDs in the House. Some 21% of the Dáil will be made up of Ministers. The population of Germany is 84 million, and there are 16 senior ministers and six junior ministers in the Reichstag. That is 3.1% of the Parliament. In France, there are 28 ministers and seven junior ministers servicing a population of 65 million. In Italy, there are 20 ministers and 30 junior ministers, servicing a population of 59 million. In Spain, there are 23 ministers and seven junior ministers, servicing a population of 47 million. I do not know where the population growth is and why we have to have so many ministers. The European Commission, which should be our guide, has 27 Commissioners, yet we seem to be number one at appointing and making up new roles for people.

I read about what is being delivered here in the newspapers. We are talking about trips. I meet fellows that I never saw before in my life and never heard speak in the House before I was a Member. They all have their bucket and spade ready to go out for the Minister. They all have their expense forms underneath their arms well filled out. I find it absolutely ridiculous that we are being misled in this House.

We have been told there is a population problem. The United States, with a population of 344 million people, has only 15 secretaries of state and has a functioning government. It has not fallen apart. It is laughable, yet we have people on trolleys. We have money for these Ministers, but we do not have money to build houses or the Cork-Mallow road, children remain on waiting lists for CAMHS day in and day out, there are people on the breadline and others are waiting for stair lifts and tenant in situ applications to come through.

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