Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The motion is right that there has been a lot of waste by this Government so far and by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments down through the years. The motion and the analysis and speeches we have heard from the proposers, however, fail to look under the bonnet and figure out why this waste is happening. The solutions proposed would actually make things even worse. The motion seeks to double down on a neoliberal rip-off republic where public services are outsourced to the private sector leaving behind an empty shell of a state that cannot do basic common-sense things like building public housing, providing bike sheds or building walls. Instead, all of those things are outsourced to a profiteering private sector.

Independent Ireland is so blinded by its right-wing neoliberal ideology that it wants to ape Trump and Musk and set up an Irish version of DOGE, this so-called department of efficiency and reform. We have all seen the horror of what is happening in the US. Staff and funding for cancer research, nuclear safety and public health are all being slashed. Public sector workers are being fired by email. We can be thankful that workers and unions in his country have fought for stronger rights than those in the US. It is not possible to fire thousands of public sector workers at will by email. We know from this motion, however, what Independent Ireland would do if it had that chance. Public sector workers beware; laying waste to the public sector is Independent Ireland's agenda.

Let us lift up the bonnet and figure out why Government waste is happening. Is it because we are not outsourcing enough to the private sector? No, the opposite is true. When you dig into any of the infamous examples of Government waste, including the bike shed, in every single case you will find examples of well-connected private companies ripping off the State and the public. Sensori, the company that built the bike shed, was founded by Michael Stone, a big political supporter and a donor to Deputy Donohoe, the man who got his posters up for free. Sensori got more than €21 million in Government contracts in the past two years alone. Charging €336,000 for a bike shed has had no effect on the company continuing to be awarded massive State contracts.

Their vans can be seen at this building today.

It is the same story with housing. The State has agreed to pay €3.4 billion in rent to vulture funds to lease 9,000 social homes for the next 25 years. When the 25 years are up, those funds will still own the properties and can do whatever they like with them. That is on top of €10 billion in Government handouts to landlords since 2011. That is waste on a colossal scale. The Government could have used that money to directly build public housing and provide permanent social and affordable housing for upwards of 50,000 families. None of that, or the €26 billion set to be wasted on fines for climate inaction, tends to be mentioned in debates on Government waste because it does not fit the right-wing narrative that the public are being fed on this.

The cause of Government waste is not public sector workers, hard-working teachers, nurses or firefighters; it is the profit-seeking vultures circling the State that are always on the lookout for ways to inflate the cost of Government contracts and to slash the wages and conditions of workers. That is what BAM has done with the national children's hospital. It is that neoliberal, rip-off republic that we need to get away from, not get deeper into, if we want to stop waste.

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