Another day and another revelation of Government waste of public money. Over the weekend, it emerged that in 2017 the National Gallery of Ireland purchased a scanner at a cost to the taxpayer of nearly €125,000. The scanner has never been used because a suitable room could not be found to accommodate it. This equipment, which cost the people €125,000, has sat idle for eight years. This of course was not a once-off. The Taoiseach will recall that in 2018 the Government purchased a printer for the Oireachtas to the tune of €800,000. That printer lay idle for ten months because it could not fit into the building. Eventually, a further €230,000 of public money had to be spent on works to the building to get the equipment in.

What are people to make of all this? Government waste of public money is not a recent phenomenon, far from it. A Government culture of waste and incompetence is deep rooted. It has been going on for a very long time. We hear the infuriating example of taxpayers' money squandered with nothing done about it. It is a case of one revelation of waste after another. The public might well ask what is coming next and where does all this end? This week it is the scanner that has not been used. Add to that the €366,000 bike shed, the €1.4 million security hut, the €9 million for phone pouches and nearly half a million euro on a perimeter wall. The list of Government's scandalous waste of public money is as long as your arm, yet not a single person has been held to account.

In this Government culture of waste and incompetence it seems nobody is responsible. Where is the proper Government oversight of how public money is spent? Where are the checks and balances and reporting within public procurement processes for which the Government is responsible? How is this allowed to happen time and again? The Government can feign anger, say this has nothing to do with it and blame the National Gallery. It can point the finger at anybody and everybody under the sun for the most expensive bike shed, security hut or perimeter wall, but let us be clear - the buck stops with the Government. It is in charge and it is the Government's responsibility to ensure that public money is spent wisely and properly and to take corrective action when it is not.

Ordinary people see this for what it is. The Government either knows about the waste of public money and does nothing about it or it does not know at all and is grossly incompetent.

Maybe it is a bit of both.

Níl sa scanóir €125,000 nár úsáideadh riamh ach caibidil eile i scéal fada an Rialtais faoi chur amú airgead an phobail. Ní féidir leanúint ar aghaidh mar seo agus tá cuntasacht ag teastáil.

The Tánaiste, it seems, is furious. The Taoiseach appears to be bewildered by the whole thing, but the Government must give an explanation for the serial wastage of public money. Was this matter raised and discussed at Cabinet today? What does the Taoiseach propose to do about this latest episode of scandalous waste?

Hear, hear.

Ar dtús báire, aontaímid go léir gur institiúid an-tábhachtach é an Gailearaí Náisiúnta agus baineann muintir na tíre an-taitneamh agus tairbhe as an institiúid seo. Caithfimid é sin a chur san áireamh i gcónaí. Ach tá sé an-deacair ar fad é seo a thuiscint. Conas is féidir scanóir a cheannach agus níl aon rud socraithe roimh ré maidir le húsáid an scanóra? Níl sé sásúil in aon chor, agus tá an tAire chun athmhachnamh a dhéanamh ar an gceist go léir. Gabhaim buíochas leis an C and AG agus a fhoireann as seo.

The National Gallery is a very important national institution. People from across the country derive great joy and benefit from it and it hosts many treasures but it is incomprehensible that it would have proceeded under a digitisation scheme to purchase a scanner and not have organised in advance how that scanner would be deployed in terms of a lead-lined room and so on. That is not acceptable. The Comptroller and Auditor General, it is my understanding, has unearthed this. It should be examined fully by the Committee of Public Accounts when that committee is established. It simply is not good enough. The gallery and those responsible have to answer for this.

Since 1998, the National Gallery of Ireland has had an X-ray facility, a film darkroom and wet processing facilities for researching the materials and techniques of its collection. Between 2012 and 2013, the old X-ray equipment, which was housed in a lead-lined room, was decommissioned in preparation for the National Gallery's master development plan to accommodate major on-site changes and infrastructural works. The intention was always to reinstate the X-ray facility but to move to a digital solution. What happened here is that a scheme was developed, a cultural digitisation scheme. The National Gallery of Ireland purchased a digital X-ray system valued at €124,000 but it is quite clear from the annual report that it had not worked how it was going to deploy or locate it and began discussions with the Office of Public Works after the purchase, looking at suitability of locations. That is completely unacceptable. People are right to be angry about it. The Comptroller and Auditor General, as I said, had a key role in that.

That said, while stories and events of this kind make people irate and very angry, we also have to take on board the fact that there have been a lot of good projects. It does not reflect the full picture of public expenditure on many worthy projects in this country. One only has to look at the number of schools, reservoirs and water works that we have built over the last number of years. There is example after example where funding has come in on budget and on time. I have listed before these school buildings, from Edmund Rice College Dublin to the Patrician Academy in Mallow and so forth. The Old Connaught-Woodbrook water supply scheme, Windmill Hill reservoir and the Kilkenny city regional water supply project are all good projects, delivered well and in the interests of people. In the justice area, Fitzgibbon Street Garda Station is providing fit-for-purpose accommodation and Walter Scott House will accommodate up to 900 Garda personnel from the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Then there area all the various roles from Castlebaldwin to Listowel.

Thank you. I call Deputy McDonald.

There is an overall feature here, but the House in general needs to focus on the specific and, more generally, on public value for money.

Deputy McDonald, please.

Let us do that then, will we? If the Taoiseach is citing Fitzgibbon Street Garda station as an example of efficiency and delivery, I am afraid he has chosen a bad example. It took years and years to be delivered. I resisted-----

No, it did not.

It did. It is in my constituency.

I know it is.

I resisted in my opening remarks citing the children's hospital, but I now feel moved to do so as it is the example of the type of incompetence and waste we have seen writ large. It all has its foundations in a Government culture of utter disregard for public money, which is reflected in the response the Taoiseach gave. He said that all of this is incomprehensible, not acceptable and not good enough and then that someone else has to answer for it. I value the National Gallery and it has to do its job and give its account, but the Deputy is the Taoiseach.

Thank you.

I asked whether this matter was raised at Cabinet.

The time is up, Deputy. Thank you.

I want to know what the Taoiseach and the Government will do-----

Thank you, Deputy. Your time is up.

-----about this and other instances of waste like this.

I should not say this. To be fair, members of the Deputy's movement have always valued art down through the years, in different ways. I appreciate her close scrutiny of the National Gallery.

Fianna Fáil has fair expertise in strokes themselves.

Politicians in this House cannot be responsible - I say this genuinely - for how individual agencies, such as the National Gallery or an arts centre, procure and deliver. We create boards, which are established by legislation. There are responsibilities-----

So it is someone else's job.

Was it like that when you got here?

-----on those who decide these things. That is said generally. Politically - the Deputy said let us have a debate - I remember, was it Deputy Ó Snodaigh who spent €50,000 on 200 cartridges? That showed a tremendous focus on value for money, did it not? That €50,000 worth of cartridges was expenditure in this House. Before the Deputy throws stones, she is wrong. The €120,000 is crazy. A scanner should never be bought-----

We will move now to-----

The other point I will make-----

Your time is up.

-----is that today I am publishing a report.

The Taoiseach is publishing a report.

We will move to Deputy Bacik of the Labour Party.

How much was Project Eagle? It was €7 million. Will the Deputy discuss the €7 million? No, because she will be in hot and heavy for the next inquiry, which will cost another €10 million or €15 million. There was never a debate on those issues.