Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As usual, I ask the Minister to answer the questions I asked. She has failed to answer the questions yet again. That is a travesty of democracy. I want it to be clear that we are not trying to make a scapegoat of any Fine Gael official. It is the Taoiseach and the Minister who are making a scapegoat of an unnamed Fine Gael official. Deputy Humphreys is the Minister and Deputy Kenny is the Taoiseach. They are responsible for this mess, not anyone else. We are trying to get to the bottom of what went on, which is why we need to know who it was before we consider anything else. The Minister has muddied the waters further by referring to officials in the printed text of her speech. Was it one official or more from Fine Gael headquarters asking the Minister to put this person on the board?
The Minister stated that the memorandum and articles of IMMA require 15 members. Her Government announced previously that there would be only nine in future and it was open to her to stick to that. She deliberately overrode her Government's policy to have only nine members on such boards, regardless of what IMMA says. I put it to the Minister that these questions have not been sufficiently answered. She has a chance to answer them now.
Will the matter be taken up in the committee dealing with the arts or in the Dáil? The Minister is running out of time. These are serious questions and very serious allegations and accusations were made about the Minister in the Sunday Independentlast Sunday, some of which I have read into the record. I wanted to ask the Minister a number of questions before my party made assessments along those lines, but the Minister is not helping the situation. We will not scapegoat anyone, but we want answers. Did the Minister vote in the Seanad election and, if so, did she vote for Mr. McNulty?