David Cullinane (Sinn Fein)

I was minded to move an amendment to the Order of Business that we discuss the Mahon tribunal but I take it from the Government side that there will hopefully be debate either by the end of this week or early next week. I support that and suggest we have it as early as possible.

It is important to say that no political party or politician should try to take the high moral ground on this issue. It is a very serious matter of corruption that went right to the heart of the political establishment. While it is important for us to have discussion and debate, what people are scandalised about at the moment is that many politicians simply do not see what happened as a crime. The kind of corruption we saw was not victimless crime; it led to very bad planning decisions that meant many people are living without proper infrastructure because of bad rezoning, lack of infrastructure and so on. What people want is not more dialogue and debate; they want the recommendations of the report implemented in full.

I would add two quick points-----