asked the Minister for Local Government if he will hold a public inquiry into land deals in County Dublin over the past ten years; and if he will include land deals by Dublin Corporation in the county area in any such inquiry.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - County Dublin Land Deals.
6.
I have referred recent newspaper articles relating to lands in County Dublin to the Attorney General for such action as he may consider appropriate. Pending the outcome, I do not consider it appromitmen priate for me to make any statement on the suggestion that a public inquiry should be held into land deals in County Dublin. I must point out, however, that in so far as Dublin Corporation is concerned, much of the land purchased by them was acquired in pursuance of compulsory purchase procedure which involved public inquiries.
Would the Minister seek to have some similar inquiry into the activities not alone at local authority level but at departmental level in some of the cases there?
Is this not a distinctly separate question?
No, we are talking about an inquiry into land deals which have been given quite a lot of publicity recently. From this side of the House we have asked the Minister to give us some information from his own office in regard to some of these cases. He has not so far given us that information.
I do not want to enter into something which has nothing to do with this. Last week I gave the reply and Deputies Molloy and Cunningham could not spare the time to be in the House. I cannot be blamed if they were not here. If they read the debate, they will see the reply.
Might I ask another supplementary question?
I hope the Deputy's supplementaries are relevant to Question No. 6.
The matter referred to by Deputy Cunningham and about which he asked the Minister——
Was deemed not relevant by the Chair.
——which deals with land deals——
The Chair deemed supplementaries by Deputy Molloy and Deputy Cunningham to be irrelevant.
They dealt with land deals in County Dublin.
No, they were not relating to that.
Might I ask the Minister if he is going to produce the advice which we challenged him to produce in our statement——
Question No. 7 please.
In view of what Deputy Molloy is saying I want to repeat: there are no hookey files in the Department of Local Government since I went in there.
There are hookey decisions by the Minister.
There are no hookey decisions and no red herrings will draw it away——
Will the Minister hold an inquiry into the Department's activities?
Let the Deputy have any inquiry he likes.
We cannot have it.
I have the files. I know what happened, including the instance where Deputy Molloy did not know the difference——
Tell us what happened.
——and Deputy Cunningham did not know the difference between a national primary and a national secondary road, and he had to write to Deputy Molloy about it, to tell him that he made a mistake.
A red herring.
There are no hookey files in my Department.
(Interruptions.)
Next question please.
Could I ask a supplementary?
The Chair has called the next question. What the Deputy raised was quite irrelevant and he must find another opportunity to raise it.
Is the word "hookey" parliamentary?
No, sir. Question No. 7. I have called the next question. The word "hookey" should not be attributed to any Member of this House.
I referred to files. No "hookey" files.
I asked one supplementary but I was in the course of asking if I would be permitted another.
No. The Chair must be obeyed.
Is the Chair protecting the Minister?
Nonsense. That is unworthy of the Deputy.
It is unworthy of the Chair not to allow a second supplementary.
The Deputy raised something which was deemed to be irrelevant altogether.
The Minister does not know whether my first supplementary was relevant; how does the Chair know that my second supplementary is going to be irrelevant?
(Interruptions.)