Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

With regard to the nine Deputies who have signed the motion, I do not know what they have to offer to the Irish people apart from demonising the Garda Síochána. This surprises me when it comes from Deputies Finian McGrath and Tom Fleming. Why would they support the claptrap in this motion? I am all for candidates standing in the next general election but we must consider what they will stand for. Will they stand for increasing taxes, getting rid of jobs in SMEs, family businesses and multinationals and cutting funding for schools and hospitals? From where will the money come?

The motion suggests they want to send back responsibility to local authorities, where there were problems with crumbling infrastructure and leaks and the management of water. Then, these Members suggest they will come up with mythical millions but have no idea about the consequences of their actions, nor are they prepared to say so. These Deputies stand for nothing because all they offer the Irish people is to send the responsibility back to the local authorities and repeat the past seven years. That is all that is on offer.

It is becoming clear the Irish people do not have an alternative Government in the Opposition. What it is successfully doing is exploiting people's anger about what happened over the past seven years and the hardship they are going through. The Independent Deputies offer nothing to the Irish people in the line of an alternative Government; there is nothing to show what they would do. The motion offers nothing but fantasy economics. I will not blame the ideology of the Deputies because what is worse is that they are trying to mislead people. We can cope with different ideologies but I have been hearing that the Independent Deputies would have burned the bondholders and that the €200 million was borrowed for the banks. I am not using exact figures so that Members can understand what I am saying. Approximately €50 billion of the €200 billion relates to the banks and the other €150 billion relates to paying pensions, social welfare payments, and the salaries of gardaí and nurses. What alternative do the Deputies opposite offer?

They are lying to the people of Ireland about what they say they will do. They want to put people through what they went through over the past seven years once again. I want the Independent Deputies to answer this question. What will they do if it all goes wrong in the coalition of the hard left, Syriza if people speak Greek?

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