Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am nearly finished. Noiméid amháin má's é do thoil é.

I am glad that one or two more Government Members have arrived. The Minister should be aware that the public is watching this debate and with no disrespect to him, how does he intend to get blood out of a stone? They do not have it. I have customers who could not pay me and I never got it but simply was obliged to do without it. Consequently, the Government cannot get this money. As for giving responsibility to Revenue, I have dealt with it, it has many good people and I had a reasonable relationship with it over the years. However, if I could not pay, the sheriff was the man who got the task. While I could deal with Revenue, I could not deal with the sheriff. Is this what is going to happen? Will we have the sheriff and gardaí breaking down doors with their truncheons? Is this what the Minister intends to force on the people? This is what is staring Members in the face in the name of the troika. While the Minister may state the Government had no choices, it had dozens of choices. The Minister had the choice of doing what the vintners asked him to do, which was to tax the drink being sold at below cost in supermarkets, from which a billion euro could be brought in. The Minister also had the choice of taxing the very well-off and of means testing the children's allowance. While the Department of Social Protection will tell one it cannot do it, a sixth-class student with a computer and a friend could do it. We have a lethargic and inept Civil Service that states it cannot be done but that game is over. The Minister and the officials have been found out.

I appeal to the Minister not to bring in this Bill and not to guillotine it tonight because the Minister and I both know what will happen. The people cannot pay. They are a proud people who like to and have paid their way but they will not go back to the likes of the Peep o' Day Boys and the landlords burning the thatch in the houses. According to Deputy Bannon, they will not have roofs on those houses. He seeks to rebuild all the listed houses, such as the one Deputy James Reilly has, below in Moneygall. Perhaps the Minister will exempt them but will kill the little people. I ask the Minister to look into his conscience - I know he has one although I am unsure about some of his colleagues - and ask whether this is honest, right, fair or proper. I again ask the Minister to withdraw the guillotine and to have some semblance of respect for and understanding of the ordinary people of Ireland.

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