Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I echo my colleague's comments about Deputy Geoghegan. I think he must have been under sponsorship to see how many times he could mention Sinn Féin in his three-minute speech. I think he made a few bob on that.

On all the talk we had about backbenchers demanding speaking time in the next while, not all the Government backbenchers turned up for this important debate. It is a case of the Government speaking out of both sides of its mouth. Fine Gael would want to get its own shop in order.

In times of economic uncertainty, the Government must stop wasting public money. Only today I received information about how the HSE has squandered €7 million of public money. I received a response from the HSE that reports it spent more than €7 million in prompt payment interest and compensation fees since 2022. These are fines the HSE received for not paying its bills on time, so basically €7 million flushed down the drain. I raised this in the Dáil in October and it appears that no action has been taken by the Government. It needs to act on this. The Minister for Health needs to put a system in place to stop the HSE haemorrhaging public money in this way. We have seen recruitment embargoes in the HSE and a lack of investment in vital treatment and this €7 million was wasted. It was not spent on anything. Public trust in Government spending is at an all-time low. While we worry about the impact of Trump's tariffs, which are irrational - it is difficult to talk rationale to an irrational mind - the Government needs to get its own shop in order first. Nothing about Trump's tariffs is justified. He just seems to want to get into the news cycle at every step.

A previous speaker spoke about Palestine. Trump is also funding a genocidal regime in Israel. We need to do everything possible to stand up to Trump. On the subject of going to America and talking to presidents, the disregard that Donald Trump showed our Taoiseach the last time was unheard of.

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