Micheál Martin

That is why we have the Comptroller and Auditor General to highlight and unearth these issues. That is why the public accounts committee in this House is there. It is there to interrogate and to hold people to account in respect of unacceptable practices and behaviour. That is the bottom line. The Deputy mentioned cybersecurity attacks as if the person or the group - very often criminal organisati…

Sorry, I did not interrupt the Deputy. He have a great habit of interrupting-----

I did not interrupt you. You do it all the time, of course. It is a tactic of yours which you learned from your former colleagues. It is a well worn campaigning tactic. The Deputy mentioned cybersecurity attacks as if it is the recipient of those attacks who is responsible for the expenditure. Come on; let us have some balance in the debate. I do not blame the HSE for the cyberattack. There may ha…

-----that the Deputy should just neatly try to bundle cyberattacks and the cost of them into the broader-----

-----legitimate issue of value for money in public expenditure, which has to be at the core of everything we do.

I reject that entirely. By the way, I do not accept his analysis of the private sector and accountability. That is a well-worn trope in this House, but, as far as I can see, anyone who looks at the private sector-----

-----will see that anyone who is ever in difficulty somehow gets sidelined with a huge sweetheart deal in the private sector. That seems to be the norm. The Deputy should not, therefore, try to make a false comparison between private sector accountability and public sector accountability. I have never bought into it or accepted it. What I will accept, though, is that there absolutely has to be val…

That is legitimate and proper. That is why we have the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee of Public Accounts. That is also why we do have the checks and balances. I looked at a list of the codes of practices and various circulars that have issued to every Department and agency. They are all there. We do need better delivery and implementation by people on the ground working in vario…

Either do that or abolish every single agency in the country and we certainly are not going to do that.

That is what the Deputy is trying to say in here if we take that approach to its logical conclusion.

That is what the Deputy is saying.

By the way, through the Chair, I think the Oireachtas needs to reflect on itself as well.

Behaviour in this House has cost the taxpayer a lot of money as well.

I saw that programme last week in respect of what happened to Angela Kerins on foot of this House, which cost the taxpayer a lot of money.

No, it is not.

I have listened to quite a lot. I have observed with some interest the growing alliance between the Labour Party and the Sinn Féin Party in this House.

The Opposition keeps using the phrase that the Government is trying to ram this through. It seems to me that the Opposition has been trying to ram through a new order in the House and a new precedent.

This is an important matter.

It seems that in the new order Deputies McDonald and Bacik will dictate who forms the groups in this House.

We have freedom of association.

It is a fundamental, basic principle that people are allowed to associate with whom they like. That is the first point. That is being denied here for the first time. I have never seen this before, since I became a Member of Dáil Éireann. There has been a bit of a herd-like attitude to this debate among the Opposition and some commentators. People have not looked at the fundamental principles unde…

The people who elected their TDs-----

With respect, a Cheann Comhairle, I have had to listen for five or six minutes-----

I want to make a point. The people have elected TDs-----

People would be shocked by the idea that their TDs do not have the right to speak or ask questions-----