Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted the Acting Chairman, Deputy Tom Hayes, is in the Chair to give me an easy run when I am speaking. He is a fellow Tipperary man. It will not be very hard at all and I will try to be as compliant as possible seeing that we have present the more polite Minister in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. I have said this to him personally and privately. In saying that, I am not saying anything bad about the Minister, Big Phil. I refer to the more civil of the two. When there is trouble, the Minister of State is the one who will be on the front line. He looks after the House when the Minister is missing.

I have many concerns about this Bill. Having listened to some of the previous speakers, I wish we were living in a really nice world in which everything was rosy and dandy, in which there were no problems at all in the country, and in which the economy was booming. However, every Bill before us is anti-business, anti-work and anti-Ireland. That is a fact. I am not saying this for the sake of it; I am saying it because I know it.

I must declare I have a number of vans. Deputy Tom Hayes will know this. He tried to count them but never got around to it. It is not that he is not able to count or anything like that. He just could not count them as they were moving. They are no longer moving as they are stopped since the last election. I have three or four vehicles since the election in 2011. It is my tough luck if I have to tax them. They will be due for tax unless I put hens into them. The vehicles are parked up and off the road. I hope they will be fit to start and go on the road the next time we need them. Deputy Hayes will have a bigger area of the county to travel. I am declaring my interest. I am in business also and have a number of work vehicles.

Let us examine the matter from the perspective of farm contractors, plant hire companies and builders. Most of the builders we know had a hole in their pants 20 years ago and had nothing. Fair dues to them: they got a bit of work, learned their trades and bought a jeep, little trailer, mini-digger or other equipment such as a ride-on dumper or Loadall. Now the bottom has fallen out of the market. They are scraping a living and trying to pay their bills. They cannot get a shilling in unemployment benefit or other benefits. Are they now to be expected to tax all the machines in their yards? They cannot sell them as there is no market for them.

They live in hope that as promised by the Government the rising tide will lift all boats. As far as I can see, the tide is continually out, the boats are sinking lower and no one seems to care a damn. All this Government is doing is introducing legislation to penalise the people of Ireland and put them into penury.

The assumption of many previous speakers, including the Minister of State, is that half the people of this country are crooks and half of all members of the Garda Síochána are as bad, which is outrageous. I have often had forms signed by the Garda Síochána. I expect that the vast majority of people seeking to have forms signed are honest. It is up to the garda to verify if a declaration is true. That is an awful implication. I know this Government, particularly the Minister for Justice and Equality, is anti-gardaí. The implication in the Minister of State's speech that gardaí willy nilly sign forms for people seeking to evade paying their taxes is outrageous. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In the real world, if a vehicle or machine breaks down or is unsuitable for a job the owner has to hire another one. I could give a thousand examples. Vehicles used as taxis and parked on the side of the road in housing states when not in use are often vandalised and burned out at night, leaving people to seek replacements for them the following morning. That is but one reason a vehicle could be off the road. We are now to anticipate when a vehicle will be off the road. We are to anticipate if the engine is going to break down and that a wheel bearing might fall off. We are to be geniuses now.

Reference was made earlier to civil servants having to go abroad for work. What about the former construction workers who have gone abroad in search of work and have left their wives, families, homes and cars behind and only get home two or three times a year? They cannot sell their vehicles either. If they owed money on them the banks, assisted by the State agencies, will have taken them, leaving them high and dry. This Government, like the previous one, believes we are all criminals. It also believes we can all pay our taxes online and that there is broadband connectivity in rural parts of Kerry and South Tipperary. If my recollection is correct either the Minister of State, Deputy Kelly, or Minister of State, Deputy Hayes, last week announced further roll-out of broadband. To be honest, I, too, have made announcements in regard to the roll-out of broadband. It was all a waste of time. One might as well have rolled toilet paper down the street because despite the promises of broadband for rural areas nothing has happened. I believed the statements made by all of the agencies on the roll out of broadband. The assumption has also been made that everyone in this country, whether 20, 60, 70, 80 or 90 years of age, is computer literate. That is not the case. A person might use the dial-up facility for purposes other than going online. It is a myth that everybody can pay their motor tax online. It may be true of the Dublin 4 set, the whizz kids and so on who have smart phones etc. As far as I am concerned, this is gone beyond a joke.

The Minister of State mentioned in his speech that for a long time people have been overcharged on arrears and that repaying that money would be too complex a process. Have we gotten so arrogant that we can refuse to repay moneys owed to people because it would cost too much to do so? The Government stole €1.1 million of the funds provided for the children's referendum. That is what the Supreme Court said, not me. That was the view of the five judges in the Supreme Court yet nothing has been done about it. I asked again this morning for a debate on the matter.

See this speech in context