Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I ask for a debate in this regard. I refer to a story which ran for weeks in one of our national newspapers concerning expenditure by the OPW on an office. We have a monument to OPW profligacy at the gates of Leinster House, a glasshouse which cost €1.2 million, an absolute disgrace that has been criticised in the House and, I hope, will be thus criticised in the future. We might have had a similarly costly monument on Leinster Lawn. Those who came before the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission proposed to spend €750,000 to restore the item but when a number of Members objected, eventually, after four attempts, we got it back with, I believe, a cost in the region of €40,000 for restoration. That is the kind of thing that went on, without politicians even being aware of it. Much of this behaviour comes from officials being instrumental in undermining people who are prepared to question them seriously.