Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to be able to speak on this topic. I wonder how the Minister of State faces these pre- and post-European Council meetings. I wonder why he is not embarrassed by the way our citizens are being crucified. Take the issue of energy prices. Prices are 26% higher than in the EU. How can the Minister of State hold his head up and how can Ireland take its rightful place among the nations of the EU and allow this to continue? Other EU countries introduced windfall taxes a year ago, or more than a year ago. Legislation on this was introduced here last night. It might not even be enacted before the summer. Does anyone out there do the roll call and report from each country about how it is looking after its people? I do not know as I have never been there. Do I want to be there? Does anyone ask how we are doing here and why we are not looking after the people?

The EU allowed a decoupling of wind energy and solar energy from fossil fuels but we were kicking and screaming here before we did it and we did it a year and a half after many other European countries. However, the price of oil has not come down so what is going on? The genie is out of the bottle. I am calling out the media here for not exposing this because our citizens are being crucified every which way. We have the most expensive oil and electricity prices in Europe. We have the most expensive prices for everything. We are in this great project - it was a great project but I have serious doubts about it now - but we seem to be lethargic, inept and unable to catch up and do what they are doing over there. Many citizens are forced to take legal cases to Europe because they cannot get justice in the courts here and, in many cases, have got justice there. Here we are again being threatened.

I mentioned this morning that Europe will not provide further funding for TB eradication. We have been trying to eradicate TB for the past 50 or 60 years despite all the money spent on it and the trauma for farmers, their wives, families, neighbours and neighbourhoods but we have not got anywhere near eradicating it. If anything, it has gotten worse and now we are going to have fund the eradication programme ourselves because the European Commission is fed up of supporting us because we are not doing what it says on the tin. We are not even keeping proper records.

Regarding the Tánaiste's language about neutrality over the past year or two years, namely, that it is an outdated position, I remind him and the Minister of State that it has served us well. Consultative forums were held in Cork, Galway and Dublin. He picked the people he wanted to get the answer he wants. Why can he not have a consultative forum on getting energy prices down? Why can he not have a citizens' assembly to get fair play for our farmers? Why can the Government not have anything to help the people? For years, the Government came back here and said this was passed in Europe and it was but now we see it is holding up the EU directive on the flooding of the lands. Thankfully, some people over there are questioning this. We are the good boys who will do everything they want and yet when it comes to standing up for our people, we do not do it.

3 o’clock

We are elected as Teachtaí Dála to serve the public. We are messengers of the people and elected to support our people. When the UN went wild and went on a crazed frenzy purchasing vaccines, mountains of them which it was never going to use, why were we not crying halt? We were not crying halt because we had the then Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, saying that we must buy more and inject everybody in Ireland four, five or six times, which continues to go on. Now there are mountains of them. There is the waste and the cost, and people cannot get orthodontic treatment, scoliosis treatment, basic home help and things like that. What has the Government done wrong and why is it not serving the people?

The Minister of State is a new Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs. Does he not feel a bit embarrassed going over there where we are laggards in everything? We are fleecing our people and even when Europe takes decisions, we do not enact them. If it takes a decision, however, to put up taxes or to do something punitive, we will have it done at midnight and we will have it transposed into Irish law within a month. We then add more pieces onto it and more hardship for the people.

I noticed the language of the Tánaiste recently, where he said Israelis were "murdered" but Palestinians were "killed". God knows I do not have the best elocution in the world - parliamentary reporters often ring me up to find out what words I am using – but somebody needs to talk to the Tánaiste because that is clearly language that has been written for him by his officials, when he speaks of some people who are ”killed” and other people who are “murdered”.

It is the same with the war in Ukraine. We all blindly support everything that is proposed. We send them helmets and coats and we would send them bullets if we could. Then, we will not restrict the numbers. I want to look after Ukrainian refugees who come here but I want a cap on the numbers. If we want to take 30,000, we must look after them properly and not have them being exploited by big developers who do up big premises and get a fortune from the State. This is far away from the meitheal spirit as it is all about money.

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