Govt deliberately delayed An Bord Snip publication: FG

Fine Gael spokesman on Enterprise Leo Varadkar has accused the Government of deliberately delaying publication of the An Bord Snip Nua report until after the Dáil recess to avoid a grilling from their political opponents.

"A close reading of the Bord Snip Nua report clearly shows that the report was ready for publication more than three weeks ago and that publication was withheld until the Dáil recess," he said.

"The McCarthy report calls for some cuts that have already been announced and refers to legislation which will ‘be published shortly’ which has already passed through the Dáil and Seanad.

"Among the recommendations made by McCarthy are cutbacks to the REPS scheme. They were announced by the Minister for Agriculture before the report was published.

"Section 12 of Volume II recommends further cutbacks to the Oireachtas. In this section, reference is made to legislation due to be ‘published shortly’ to change the way MEPs are paid. In fact, this bill was published over a month ago and has already been passed through the Dáil and Seanad."

Varadkar called for the Dáil to be recalled to discuss the report.