Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I ask for the Minister for Health to come to the House to explain the €100 million overrun on the national children's hospital. Day after day and week after week I stand here being told that Sinn Féin is not on top of economic issues and asking what would happen if Sinn Féin were running the economy. However, a project like this overrunning by €100 million is absolutely unacceptable and we need transparency on it. That €100 million will be taken from other vital services within the health service and it cannot be allowed to happen. I ask that the Minister come to the House at the very first opportunity. This time last year we were told that the national children's hospital would be brought in on time and on budget. Something has gone disastrously wrong here and somebody must be held accountable for it.

The appalling scenes of eviction in Roscommon in recent days have highlighted the need for urgent regulation of private security firms. I welcome the Bill tabled by my colleague, Deputy Ó Laoghaire, to regulate private security firms. We witnessed scenes of people coming in to evict an elderly couple from their home, regardless of the individual circumstances. We do not know who these people were or where they came from. They had no identification whatsoever. This cannot be allowed to continue. It is a disgrace and was unjustified. It brought to mind scenes from our past of people being thrown on to the side of the road. Those scenes have touched a raw nerve, certainly with people living in rural areas. I commend the community on coming together and standing against this type of behaviour. I want the Minister for Justice and Equality to come to the House.I want to ask him to explain to us how An Garda Síochána could stand by and let a situation like this develop. We need to know what is impeding it from intervening in such situations. I welcome the Bill, which will go some way to addressing this and providing accountability with regard to private security firms, which seem to be running riot around this country and seem to be running riot at the behest of the banks, which have treated the citizens of this country, and continue to treat them, appallingly.

I welcome the British Competition and Markets Authority, CMA, recommendations around the auditing of the big firms in order to separate audit from consulting services. This is something I have asked to be done through our finance committee. I raised it before because of the auditing firm that had given a clean bill of health to Carillion and to others. The cost of what has happened to smaller businesses within the State due to Carillion has to be addressed and one of the ways of addressing it is to hold the auditing firms to account. These are the same auditing firms which told us the banks had a clean bill of health before the last crash. Something needs to be done. I ask the Minister for Finance to come to the House in the new year specifically to discuss that issue.