Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)

I thank Deputy Michael McGrath for putting forward this motion. I welcome the people in the Visitors Gallery this evening, some of whom are suffering due to this State robbery. We cannot call it anything other than State robbery - the fact that 80,000 mortgage holders with Permanent TSB, a State owned bank, are being charged a rate of at least 2% more than are those with mortgages with AIB. Is this what the country has come to? I am appalled there was nobody on the Government side of the House earlier tonight. I do not know where the ladies and gentlemen who are there now were but I heard they were at parliamentary party meetings having rows over airline tickets and over who would be flying to the best parts of the world on junkets for St. Patrick's Day. I heard they had to pull the names out of a hat.

The Members on the Government side have a Taoiseach leading them who will not stand up to the Europeans nor to the bankers. When gardaí in Bray wanted Seán Fitzpatrick, he was telephoned to come down by appointment but they kicked in the door today of somebody's house in an eviction. They did the same in my county. Deputy McEntee was here when they came to my county and took machinery in the middle of the night. Thankfully, those machines were returned today, as a result of much hard work.

This is the type of thing over which the Government is presiding. It promised the people it would deal with everybody and would burn the bondholders and that hellfire would not be as hot but it has done nothing. It has been sitting on its hands and is a disgrace. The Government Members did not even have the manners to show respect for this motion and for the thousands of people in negative equity by coming into the House this evening to listen to the debate. I have never seen the beat of this.

I apologise to Deputy Catherine Byrne, who did her best in the Chair. It was not her fault that not one Member of the Government had the manners or respect for the people of Ireland to come into the House. The people are waiting in the long grass and will not be waiting too long, judging by the kind of scraps I hear the Members on the Government side are having, where they cannot decide who will get the plum positions or who will get the best Waterford crystal to present abroad. What they are doing is a farce. They said they would cut out the junkets, but they are junket happy and junket hungry. They are a disgrace and some of them should never come home. The country would be better off if they stayed away.

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