Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The parties in government are the only ones who have confidence in the Government. They are in a cocoon in this House. I am not in favour of protest, protest, protest but one sees the reality when one meets people. The Taoiseach cannot go to a constituency or turn a sod when there is good news – I welcome good news – because people are protesting.

People gave the Taoiseach the finest mandate anyone ever got. I voted for him as Taoiseach but I am bitterly disappointed. One could ask how the people feel. The Taoiseach has completely turned his back on them all. I accept there was austerity but the Taoiseach looked after the fat cats. He promised reform, openness and transparency but he has been an abysmal failure in all of those areas. The Taoiseach packed boards with people and packed the courts with his cronies. He tried to get rid of the Seanad. When people rejected that, the Taoiseach said he got a wallop. It is nothing to the wallop he is going to get. The Taoiseach will get many wallops. I could use stronger words but I will not do so.

It is an awful pity that he did not live up to any part of his mandate. Promises were made to the families affected by the Omagh bomb, and justice was promised to the family of the priest murdered in Offaly. Promises were also made to many other groups. The Taoiseach met Ms Cahill, whom I salute for her bravery, but he could not meet the families who wanted justice for their loved ones who were killed. The Taoiseach has been an abject failure to those people. All the Taoiseach had to do was to meet them. He was able to meet homeless people last week. Did he have to wait until the unfortunate individual died last week on the street 50 yards from Leinster House to know there was a homeless problem?

Will the Taoiseach call in the banks? Will he rein in NAMA, which is making people homeless? It is terrorising a widow in my county whose late husband ended his own life. Will the Taoiseach call off the hound dogs of NAMA and the officials and ask them to stop terrorising that decent family in County Tipperary, of whom he should be aware and should know? The Minister of State, Deputy Tom Hayes, and others know the family. It is a shame and disgrace.

People have made sacrifices. We all bailed out the banks. I was one who voted for that. It was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made in my life. Now the banks are piddling down on top of us and walking on us, with sanction from the Taoiseach and the Minister. The banks are being let off with aplomb and the Government is patting them on the back. Up to 100,000 people are awaiting eviction. The Government talks about solving the problem of homelessness. The Government should try to sort out the problem by calling off the hound dogs of the banks, Revenue and NAMA – the biggest and most dangerous entity. I could use a word beginning with C to refer to NAMA but I will not use it in the House. It is a merry-go-round. It identifies properties but will not sell them for the price offered by decent people as it is keeping them to sell them at a knock-down price to friends and contacts. NAMA stinks and is rotten to the core. What it is doing to ordinary families is disgusting. I am very disappointed about that.

The Minister, Deputy Varadkar spoke in the debate. It goes to show how confused the Government is. He said the Taoiseach is the captain that could steady the ship on the ocean. Does he not know a captain flies an airplane and that a ship is navigated by somebody other than that? Neither we nor the people have any confidence in the Taoiseach to navigate the ship of state anywhere anymore because he has lost all credibility and respect. I heard the former Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, talk about what he did when he was in the Department of Health. He destroyed the health service. People are now waiting three months to access the fair deal scheme, an initiative into which we all bought and persuaded others to do, yet poor people are waiting for such a length of time. I heard a woman interviewed on radio today speak about her father who is 103 years of age who had been turfed out of a long-stay home and told to go someplace else because they cannot keep him. The Taoiseach taxed the hearse in the last budget and I said he would tax the shroud. I do not know why he did not do it in this budget, but he is doing it every day of the week because he took away the bereavement grant. He is also taxing medical card holders who spend more than 30 consecutive days in hospital after which they are charged so much a day, regardless of their income.

How low can the Taoiseach go? His party does not have a good record of looking after the ordinary, working class people of Ireland. He did look after them. He brought in honesty and openness and promoted his Ministers. He promoted the former Minister, Phil Hogan, to Europe after he wrecked democracy, banished town councils and forced Irish Water through the House and laughed about it. It took three hours with no proper debate. Look at the monster that has been created. Those on the Fine Gael backbenches were boasting that he was a great man, that he did all the heavy lifting. They said he forced Tipperary together despite my efforts. They said he was some man. He brought in property tax. Now he has gone to Brussels and will benefit from his pension scheme. He brought the gravy train with him. He did all the heavy lifting and now the sky is falling down around those in government and they do not know what is happening. They are mesmerised. As my good colleague, Deputy Healy-Rae would say - I sympathise with him on the death of his late father, Jackie - those in government have been in a coma for three and a half years.

They have woken up suddenly because the people are awake now. They saw what was going on with EirGrid which was trying to destroy our country by putting up pylons for which there was no need, with no analysis or study, just to bail out the Government's friends by giving them the big business.

There is the case of Uisce Éireann. I said at the time that the only thing I liked about it was the name - I like the teanga and the cúpla focal Gaeilge but other than that it is a monstrosity that is hanging around the Government's neck and causing mess after mess. The Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, is a fellow Tipperary man. He put out his chest and he hopes his legacy will be like John F. Kennedy. I say that his legacy will be that he will be up to his oxter in water and something else before he knows it.

The former Minister, Phil Hogan, tried to say that the septic tanks were dirty and the cause of pollution. Now the Government is admitting every day that it is Ringsend and the 42 towns and the municipal districts that are causing that pollution. They try to blame the people when it suits. Anyone who ever drew water from a well knows that it is hard got and those are the people who know the value of water. I am not saying it should be free; I am saying that we do not need the fat cats of Irish Water nor do we need the people who sometimes failed in their senior positions in public service to be rewarded again by getting bigger jobs in Irish Water with no accountability whatsoever. Accountable, my hat, along with transparency, openness and accountability.

The Government reformed the courts and it gave us an extra layer of judges, a new layer, with no definition as to how many cases they would hear. What about justice for the ordinary people? The Government brought out the gardaí in major numbers at Waterford court and other courts recently to stop advocates going in to help and to stand with families who could not afford barristers. It is some fair justice.

I said the Minister for Social Protection was tinkering with the Social Welfare Bill to try to avoid the mess and the damage done by Irish Water. Instead of dealing with people who are on the breadline and dealing with people who have been made homeless, she decided to pay people €100 to register for water and €100 if they have a septic tank and a well. I heard on the news the following morning that the Department of Social Protection was planning to take on more officials to administer this scheme. What, in God's name is going on? The Ministers on the other side of the House would need to pinch themselves and wake up because the people are out there and the Government's epitaph has been written for some time. The people will be ready. They will go into the ballot box in ones, the first chance they get and the Taoiseach's epitaph will be written. He will be banished to oblivion.

I was there in the worst days of the previous Government. We were not as headless and the people were not as frightened and as angry as they are now. They voted for the Government in good faith with the stroke of the pen. They were promised hospitals and they were promised there would not be abortion in this country. They were promised dozens of things but these were all turned to rubbish and put down the drain. I say shame on the Taoiseach and shame on the people who will vote confidence in him. We should be debating many other aspects here this evening.

The Minister, Deputy Bruton, spoke about jobs and so did the Tánaiste and the Minister of State with responsibility for the diaspora. The Government had to appoint a Minister of State for the diaspora because so many people have gone abroad there would need to be Ministers permanently overseas to try to look after them. They are scrambling trying to come home to help their families for Christmas. We should be dealing with joyous matters in the run-up to Christmas and not dealing with this Government motion which was tabled because they believe in their own rhetoric. The Taoiseach got rid of Frank Flannery, the former Minister, Phil Hogan, went to Europe, his famous Minister for Justice and Equality - the great reforming Minister - refused to bring in the scrap and precious metal Bill and many others. Since they have left him the Taoiseach is at sea and he cannot get his hand on the wheel to steady the ship.

Other Ministers and backbenchers might be talking confidence in the Taoiseach today but they are talking otherwise outside here and in the constituencies and they are saying they are voting against this and that. I tell the Taoiseach that his days are numbered and he should stand up and smell the coffee and not be visiting homeless people but rather he should visit the people whom the banks are terrorising. I asked him to visit a family in Tipperary who are being persecuted by NAMA, a State organisation paid for by the taxpayers and they are treating people like that - the Black and Tans did not do it as bad as what the Government is doing. That is fact and the Taoiseach knows it. He has closed down rural Ireland with diktats from Europe, added to the diktats from here and he has closed down rural towns. I was in Castlebar recently, his own town. We saw how his brother got into difficulties in the local elections. Rural Ireland, rural towns, are stifled with bureaucracy and they are stifled with the banks who will not lend a shilling to anyone and are only concerned with getting their bank levels right.

I say to the Taoiseach that he has some neck to table a motion of confidence in himself because he cannot have confidence. I ask him to look in the mirror to see the failure he has been, to see the Omagh bomb victims and see the other people to whom he promised justice and how he has failed them miserably and disgracefully.

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