Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-21
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Pearse Doherty (SF), Donegal

At a time ordinary workers and families are counting every euro, the Government continues to be a serial waster of public money. There is the €127,000 designer bike shed at the Kerry hospital, a bike shed that is actually letting water in - you could not make it up. Hot on the heels of that, we now discover that €50 million of taxpayers’ money has effectively been torched on a failed IT system for Irish Rail. That is €50 million gone. While the Government burns through public money, ordinary people are being stretched like never before and it expects them to pick up the tab for this incompetence. It treats public money as if it were Monopoly money. The Minister knows it is not an isolated incident. It is one scandal after the other. It is one grotesque waste of taxpayers’ money after another and the public are sick of it. Ministers come in here, shrug their shoulders and expect the people to pick up the tab, but it is not on. Who will be held accountable for any of this? This is €50 million of taxpayers’ money being wasted again under the Government’s watch. What is it going to do to end the culture of waste, incompetence and contempt for taxpayers and workers who are paying the price for what we are seeing over and over again?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:58+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-21