Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)

I ask the Leader to bring the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Varadkar, before the House to discuss why the Irish Coast Guard Service has €5 million of equipment sitting in a warehouse in Blanchardstown despite being purchased two years ago. It has still not been installed in the marine rescue co-ordination centres in Malin and Valentia but the equipment in those stations is obsolete; the manufacturers issued a "death certificate" to the coast guard service in 2007 for the equipment, indicating that the existing equipment is liable to catastrophic failure at any moment.

It is hard to believe that a coast guard service dedicated to the cause of preserving lives is knowingly putting them at risk by having obsolete equipment in situ when brand new equipment has been sitting in a warehouse in Blanchardstown for two years. The manufacturer's warranty has now run out on the new equipment and the taxpayer is paying thousands of euro every month to the manufacturers to keep a warranty. Will the Leader bring the Minister before the House to discuss the matter?

Last week I raised an issue connected to NAMA, and we discussed Standing Order 56, which provides the facility to bring the Attorney General before the House. The Leader omitted to reply on the issue. The Attorney General and representatives of NAMA have asked me to provide evidence on the matter but do I look like the Garda Síochána, with an ability to investigate people conducting deals in the paperless world of darkened rooms? A source of the information wrote to NAMA and provided background information. We passed legislation to instruct NAMA on how properties should be sold but it is not following those rules. It is not selling them by auction or tender but in the most perverse manner imaginable, namely, selling them back to the people who originally borrowed the money from the banks, and doing so at greatly discounted prices and enormous losses to the taxpayer. I ask the Leader to bring the Attorney General into the House under Standing Order 56.