Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Mattie McGrath for allowing me some of his time. The Government should have called the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill what it is. Some people in the Visitors Gallery might have just arrived and might not know what the Bill is about. The Government is making it easier for banks and lending institutions to repossess and take over property and businesses. It is making it easier for banks to take property and homes back from honest-to-God people who work hard and try to do their best. I am baffled at how Fine Gael and Labour Ministers and backbenchers can stand over this Bill given the crisis families and businesspeople are going through at present. It is introducing a Bill making it easier to take property away from honest-to-God hard-working people.

People took out mortgages in good faith. They were being told at the time by those writing in the national press and others to get on the property ladder before it was too late and that they would be left behind if they did not buy then. They did their honest-to-God best and scrambled together whatever bit of money they could. The bankers were jumping out the windows trying to give them the money. What do we have here tonight? After bailing out the banks and the Government doing everything in the world to help and facilitate the banks, we are again going after the vulnerable people. We are again going after the families who are struggling and trying to put food on the table.

I could swear on the Bible that I know people living in homes without electricity tonight. The reason they do not have it is that they are in arrears, cannot pay the bills and their electricity has been cut off. What is the Government's answer to that? On the first day of May, today, it put a carbon tax on coal and bales of briquettes making it impossible for them to be able to buy a bit of fuel for the fire when the winter will come around again. The Government is acting disgracefully. Government Members are a shame and a disgrace. To bring this Bill before the House tonight shows that the Government, because of its massive majority, is holding the people in utter contempt. Government Members have no understanding of how families are struggling to survive, trying to send youngsters to school and buy them books and uniforms. They really cannot manage. They are doing their level best. The Government hit them with a property tax and hit them with water charges. It is trying to plunder the ordinary worker in every conceivable way it can.

Last week a Minister would not use his vote to register his opposition to a banker getting €850,000 a year. How can Government Members try to stand over it? It is ridiculous. They were the people who said Fianna Fáil was wrong and that they would do everything right. The vast majority of the people believed them and thought they had the best interests of the people at heart. If they have, they have a funny way of showing it because they are again hurting the people tonight with the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill. Who thinks up these names, which are beyond belief? Why not call it what it is given that it will hit vulnerable people and make it easy for the banks to repossess property?

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