Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Cathaoirleach who has been awarded the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise. I am not sure if it means that he is wise. The award was made by the Ukrainian President and is quite prestigious. I congratulate the Cathaoirleach.

We read in The Journal today that the Departments of Public Expenditure and Reform and Defence are at loggerheads over the continued service of a number of sergeants who joined the Defence Forces in 1994. These valuable, highly skilled, highly trained people will be lost at the end of this year if the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform does not stop its messing. It is unbelievable that that Department has such reach into every single Department. Why do we have Ministers at all? Let us get rid of them all and let the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform run the entire country. I have spoken about the power of the Civil Service. It is becoming annoying. Someone who wants to hire a secretary now has to ask the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and wait for its blessing. This needs to stop.

I opened the Irish Examinertoday and saw an article about my favourite organisation in Ireland, the Irish Coast Guard, once again. It is about to spend €400,000 plus VAT on pens, pencils, bags, hats, t-shirts and so on related to branding. Will somebody please tell me what cost-benefit analysis went into this madness? We are talking about water safety. A sum of €400,000 would cover a significant education programme for all water users, not just those lucky enough to turn up and get a free hat. Will the free hat do much to save lives? I do not believe it will. This organisation is totally out of control. I already mentioned that we are going to pay over €1 billion for our search and rescue helicopters. While the UK gets 12 bases with 18 helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft and drones for £1.6 billion sterling, we get five helicopters and top cover for over €1 billion. I believe the cost will be between €1.3 billion and €1.5 billion by the time this is signed off.

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is stopping a few sergeants who are valuable to the Defence Forces from being retained. What is the Department doing about the money being spent by the Department of Transport and the Irish Coast Guard? The Irish Coast Guard did away with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, RNLI, life jackets and brought in its own, which were found to be dangerous in 2015 and taken out of service in 2018. Something is wrong with the governance of that organisation. I have spoken on it until I have been blue in the face and I am getting tired of there being no corporate oversight. I mentioned this yesterday. Daniel O'Connell's article at the weekend referred to the lack of oversight and control that politics has over the Civil Service. It is out of control. Each of us has a duty to bring this country back to being one that is governed, not one run by faceless, unelected people.