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

I wish the Minister well in his new role but I want him to do something different. I also wish the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, and others well in their roles but I am asking them, as business people, to do one thing. There are some on the Government benches who are business people and I want them to make their Departments accountable. In saying that, I want to make them accountable for delivery. It is very simple. I have been in business all of my life. I am self-employed. If I make a mistake, I am accountable. Come the end of the month, if Revenue is not paid online, I am accountable. If VAT payments are not made, I am accountable. When Ministers go into their positions in Departments, they are often told they are welcome but that this is how things are done. That has to change now. I want Ministers to stand up to their Departments and tell them that they are in charge, that the Department is going to do things and deliver for this country. Things are not going to continue to be done the way they have been for years.

Let us look at Uisce Éireann and what it delivers for the money it is getting. It is not value for money. How do I know this? I know because I look at business plans across Europe and see other international companies delivering projects for half the price charged by Uisce Éireann. That is not accountability. That is a waste of funds. I look at Askeaton in County Limerick. Fianna Fáil promised 45 years ago that the wastewater treatment plant would be updated. A Fianna Fáil councillor said, on his election, that a wastewater treatment plant would be delivered in Limerick. I have said this to the Minister previously but he has not been listening. He is laughing now with the Minister beside him about the fact this has been brought up previously. I am talking about 45 years of disappointment from the Government. The Minister is new to the job. I urge him to stand up and be counted and get his Department to be accountable.

Let us look at the HSE in Limerick. In my first contribution in the Dáil I said the management in UHL was wrong. The management changed five years later. How many lives were lost because of bad management? It took the Government five years to correct it and now it is trying to rebuild. That is accountability. That is what I am talking about. People sniggering, laughing and chuckling because the Government has a majority in the Dáil is not acceptable. I will hold the Government to account in this Chamber and outside but I will also be respectful to the Government when it delivers. Delivery has to be in relation to Departments and the waste of funds.

Statistics show that there is an urban-rural divide when it comes to infrastructure which discriminates against young people who want to live in the area they grew up in, who want to see it grow and who want to see infrastructure like buses or a rail network being provided. They want basic infrastructure so that towns and villages can be rebuilt, can grow and can be repurposed. If we starve areas of infrastructure, they cannot grow. The Government wants to push everything into the cities which are already bursting at the seams. The Government is going to counties like Limerick looking for water to come to Dublin. It is projecting that it will cost €400 million to bring water to Dublin. I talked to representatives of Uisce Éireann recently. They said I should visit one of their plants in Dublin but I said they should come down and look at one in Limerick. The LDA was set up to deal with a site 15 minutes from Limerick city that takes out two thirds of County Limerick from infrastructure. Every town and village needs to have infrastructure. Departments need to be held accountable. If they make a mistake, they should be demoted, not promoted. They should not just be put to one side and told "listen lads, you're okay, we'll shove you over here". The same business model that Revenue uses should be used in Departments. If people lose money, they must get out. They must be made accountable and never get into a position again where they can have funding at their fingertips and lose it. We want infrastructure delivered. We want to make sure there is accountability within the Departments and a body watching over every penny that is spent on behalf of every business person and every worker in this country who is paying for this Dáil today. That is what we want.

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