The National Aquatic Centre is located at Abbotstown in my constituency and is a valued local amenity as well as an important national training centre. However it has had a controversial history and the report in a Sunday newspaper of a €1.5 million compensation payment to the under-bidder for the original contract is another chapter in a sorry history of poor administration and political failure.

I have raised questions about this centre for years in the Dail but each time Minister after Minister has refused to give full accountability for the shocking series of errors and flawed decisions right from the start. The whole tendering process was defective right from the start and the original contract was awarded to a shelf company with no assets or capacity to run such a vital amenity. The State has had to pay over and over again for these errors and yet no Minister has ever been sacked for the shocking waste of public money involved.

Now we have this further compensation payment that effectively admits to the flaws in the original deal. In comparison with the billions that the taxpayer has had to pay to rescue the banks this sum may seem small but it is a symptom of the way Ireland was administered by Fianna Fail and Mr Bertie Ahern. Each million squandered at that time created a culture of waste that has left its mark on the country’s finances to this day and we are all now paying the price.

It is not good enough to simply pay up and forget the litany of errors and overpayments associated with this project. I suggest the Comptroller and Auditor General be requested to prepare a full report for the Public Accounts Committee so that lessons can be learned and the guilty parties of this shocking scandal are named and shamed.