Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)

This is quite extraordinary. A tribunal was set up in 1997 and millions of euro of public money is going in to paying expenses related to that tribunal in this Revised Estimate this year. The person responsible for answering questions to the Oireachtas about this, the Taoiseach, refused to come to the finance committee to answer questions. He did refuse, because we wrote to him and we said we would accommodate him at any time or date that suits him. The Taoiseach has not come to our committee. He has declined to come. With a few hours' notice, these Estimates have come in here without being discussed at the committee and without us having the opportunity to ask questions, as we should have been able to do and as we wanted to because we want to do our job in scrutinising them. These Estimates should be getting discussed at the committee with the Taoiseach, so that when we ask for the detailed breakdown as to what is happening here, he should be able to answer in a back-and-forth exchange.

That is the normal process on Estimates and Revised Estimates, and which is done with all the other Revised Estimates but is not being done here. That is completely wrong. The Taoiseach should come to the committee to answer our questions on this. The Taoiseach's absence today, his not coming to committee today and the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, bringing them forward today with a few hours' notice without the Taoiseach answering questions is utterly unacceptable. It is all the more unacceptable when we look at what is going on here with millions of euro still going to pay for the expenses of the Moriarty tribunal almost 30 years after it was set up. That is extraordinary and it is extraordinary that the Taoiseach is evading accountability on it. This is exactly what is happening. He is evading accountability. We wanted him at our committee to answer questions on this. We asked him to come. We said we would accommodate him at any time or date that suited him. I know he is a busy man but surely he should be able to schedule a time and date to come into the committee to answer questions on this. He has declined to do so. It is utterly unacceptable and all the more so when this Government is being propped up by Deputy Michael Lowry and, of course, there would not be a Moriarty tribunal were it not for the findings that were made against him. Evading accountability on that is utterly unacceptable.

There is a fundamental question here. Where are the millions of euro of additional funding for the Moriarty tribunal going? We should not be in the Dáil Chamber without this having been trashed out properly with proper information at the committee and with the Taoiseach present. Where is the detailed breakdown of that? Why has it not been provided to the committee? Why has the Taoiseach not come in to answer questions? Will that detailed breakdown be provided at this stage? Why were we only given a few hours' notice of this? Why was it just sprung today? If this is the Government's way of doing business, and if it thinks this is an acceptable way of doing business, why did the Government not give us notice last week at the Business Committee? Why was it just sprung at the very last minute? The Government is trying to pull a fast one here by evading accountability. That is what the Government is doing. There is a much better way of doing this. There is an established way of doing the Estimates, which all the other Revised Estimates go through, which is that the line Minister - in this case, the Taoiseach - comes to the committee. That is not happening on this occasion. It is not acceptable. It is pulling a fast one and we are calling the Government out on it.

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