Mattie McGrath: Condemns 'Sinful' Waste in Public Spending
Mattie McGrath criticised what he called wasteful, even "sinful", public spending and condemned inadequate contracting around major hospital projects. He highlighted a case of a mother, Sabrina Kelly, whose five-year-old son Josh was failed by the National Council of Special Education and the Department of Education and offered an unsuitable school placement.
Construction and contract criticism
McGrath attacked contracts linked to the Children's Hospital and the National Maternity Hospital, describing some arrangements as "wildly inadequate" and likening a contract to "a piece of string for BAM." He listed smaller spend items - the "bike shed" and a cabin - as part of a pattern of waste, and questioned what other unexplained spending exists beyond those known examples.
Special education case highlighted
He raised the specific case of Sabrina Kelly from Oakland and her son Josh, a five-year-old with special needs who was due to start school in September. Josh was eventually offered a place at Powsham National School near Clownwell, which his mother said was not suitable; McGrath said the child had been failed by the National Council of Special Education and the Department of Education.
Broader public services failures
McGrath pointed to multiple public service failures alongside wasteful spending, including lack of dentistry, years-long waits for doctor appointments, and long waits for cataract treatment. He referred to people and groups who have approached his office, and to submissions heard in pre-budget consultations, to underline the human consequences of these service gaps.
Accountability and demand for change
He blamed successive governments, administrations and departmental secretaries for failing to address the problems, arguing officials "never have to get elected" and escape accountability. McGrath warned the situation will not change without serious action and said reform must happen beyond electoral cycles.
We publish thousands of recordings to make Irish politics transparent and resistant to manipulation. Spotted an error? Report it — together we are building a reliable archive of Irish politics.
Wasteful spending of public money, I would call it sinful spending of public money, absolutely no way to accept it, and it has been accepted, it has become the norm, Children's Hospital, Minister, Taoiseach, now she's trying to contract, contract that was wildly inadequate, actually a piece of string for BAM, and now we're going to do the same with the National Maternity Hospital, the bike shed, the cabin going into a house here, you name it, they're the ones we know about, what about the ones we don't know about, that would never be a hospital out there, and then we contrast all of us every day, and I have to raise the case here of an Oakland mother of two children with special needs, is still struggling to secure a school place for her youngest son, Sabrina Kelly's son, Josh, has been failed by the National Council of Special Education and the Department of Education, five-year-old Josh was due to start school in September, and was eventually offered a place at Powsham National School, near Clownwell, and however, Sabrina says, through no fault of the school, it was just not suitable, I had more people onto my office today, on a daily basis, people, we saw the scoliosis people here last week, we're trying to grapple with the understanding and the public here, with the waste, but you have cases like that, and everything in his house have them, and the teacher talks about them, he's met them, he's been listening to them in pre-budget submissions, we're failing them, failing them, and on the other hand, wasteful money, good money after bad, like in the old people, the old time, 50 people who lived in the Bohans, and small houses, small families, waste, not want, recycle stuff, to think that we imagine that some wild dream went out and we are a world-class economy, and we have more money than we can handle, and we have cases like this, lack of dentistry, waiting years for an appointment with a doctor, up the belt for stop blind for cataracts, it's an appalling vista, what's going on, and successive governments have failed to change it, and successive administrations, and secretaries of departments, who never have to get elected, never face the people, only get, go off of their pension, so, it's unacceptable, and it's not going to change around the year, watch, and I don't want to change it in the next government too, but something seriously has to happen.
Thank you for downloading 🙏
If you publish this material on social media, we would be very grateful if you tagged VideoParliament. It helps us reach more people and keep building a transparent archive of Irish politics.
