I concur with some of the remarks from Senator Fitzpatrick on the bicycle shelter. It is somewhat disappointing that we have politicians, some of them who are members of the commission here, in the Houses, queuing up to point the blame, saying that the commission had no knowledge or involvement. We have a commission that runs this House and should have known. The construction of it has been under our nose, and the nose of anyone who comes in and out, for the past nine months. We knew what was going on.

Sorry, Senator Boyhan. Just to clarify, and not to have an argument, the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, as the Senator knows, does not have a capital budget, so has no jurisdiction to spend money. The Ceann Comhairle has made it quite clear. To be fair of all members of the commission who operate on behalf of the Members of the Oireachtas, they were not involved in the spending and the allocation of funding, and there should be no inference that they were.

There was no inference. I never said anything about spending. I said they should have known what was going on.

I know. Just to clarify-----

Let us not start defending the case.

We are not defending it.

I am talking to the public outside of here. This is a body - the commission - which is paid and has a function, a responsibility and oversight for the running of these Houses. I want to put it on notice that there is a proposal currently before the commission to do extensive changes to our Library beneath this beautiful room. It will cost millions of euro to do and to operate. Let us be on notice so we are not here in another six months, talking about another scandal of waste of public money.

We are seeing this concern. I am not saying who authorised the money but I am saying the commission and the people here should have known what was going on and should have asked questions. It is easy to romp in here after the summer and blame the Office of Public Works and everybody else. Let us, as politicians, take responsibility for things that are going on within our campus. I accept the Cathaoirleach is right in that the commission had no dealings with the funding of it. However, we surely should know what is going on in the centre of Parliament, in the parliamentary complex.

I want a note of fairness. The Office of Public Works does amazing work in keeping this building and the National Botanic Gardens - 30 or 40 buildings around the city. Let us not scapegoat people. This happened because someone wanted it to happen. Let us take our fair share of blame and responsibility. Because the public is outraged, suddenly the politicians are outraged.

I want to finished on this. Let it be a marker. Let us not destroy our Library below this room. Let us not incur any further public expense and make more excuses. We are on notice here today, as we were yesterday by my good colleague, Senator Michael McDowell, who had an extensive piece in The Irish Times, which I recommend that people read. Let us take responsibility for what is under our noses in this place.