Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)

I hope the Minister acknowledges where I am coming from and I expect he will. I am not knocking officials per se. I am stating that we have a permanent government and systems in local authorities. I have met the best of officials in South Tipperary County Council with regard to schemes introduced in the local authority area and rate collection, which was at 93% or 94% and collected by people going out in wet and cold weather. Officials also worked on the flooding and snowstorms which affected south Tipperary. How the Civil Defence operates is a lesson to us all, such as when bad news on "boil water" notices must be delivered. The people of rural Ireland and their septic tanks have been blamed for contamination. When there is contamination of the council water supply from any source - it is rarely caused by septic tanks - Civil Defence personnel go out with letters to ensure they reach every household. We should not depend on the post, e-mail or radio broadcasts, although they help. I recommend that the Civil Defence be entrusted with that task.

I cannot agree with my colleague, Deputy Catherine Murphy, although I respect her argument that she would do away with county councils and have three or four regional authorities. The experience has been disastrous with such a process. The HSE taking on the role of the old health boards is an example. Another recent example is the transfer of the medical card system from local bodies to a centralised system in Dublin. It was a total fiasco. A neighbour of mine is very sick and applied for a medical card six months ago. I got word to my office after several weeks of twice daily phone calls that the file had been lost; anybody can lose a file but I could have been told weeks ago. Any Deputy would agree that the process is a fiasco. I do not blame those on the front line who deal with this in Dublin, but much blackguarding went on with the passport process, although many good people work in the office. That is not good enough for the public, who pay taxes and rates. I cannot agree with some of the processes in the Department of Social Protection either. A woman rang me yesterday evening who gave all her information to the Department six months ago. After several requests for information and having been told she would have a reply to her appeal within two weeks, we are six months down the road. That is totally unacceptable in a democratic country.

Bills like this one from Deputy Collins must be introduced, as well as others. The Minister and his Government promised reform and they were elected in large numbers as a result. They would have been elected if they had not made any promises but they promised reform. There was a row this morning over the information supplied by the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn to us and to his backbenchers. I was a soldier like that and had to do as I was told by senior party members. Above all else, I trusted them. We were told that the fines relating to the water directive would be due in February but that is far from the truth. I compliment Deputy Ó Cúiv and his researchers, who went to the European Commission to find out the truth, or as The Irish Press would have said, the truth in the news. Where is the truth if we cannot believe what comes from the Minister in charge of ordering business for the day and the Government Chief Whip?

I met the Minister in the canteen having a cup of tea and told him I was disappointed that the Bill was being guillotined on Committee Stage. That is unprecedented and the Deputy who is returning to the Chamber now, Deputy Regina Doherty, and her colleagues voted to accept it. The Minister said he was not aware of that and that I should speak to the Chief Whip. He started talking about fivers. I deny that scurrilous peddling of disgraceful lies. I was at a public meeting the other night in a different county to my own and somebody suggested that everybody could contribute €5 for expenses for the meeting. It was knocked on the head straight away.

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