Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On the plinth today we can see the tulips have wilted as a result of the inclement weather but the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Fitzgerald, should know that this Government's economic statement is wilting already because it is on shaky foundations, is a farce and untrue. It is more spin and propaganda. The Minister only has to ask any of the people outside this House about this economic statement. I refer to the unfortunate people waiting on trolleys in hospitals. There are long waiting lists of four and five years for simple procedures while people are in agony.

The Minister should ask the carer's associations about it whose respite care was plundered and who had a tax imposed on them. She should ask the special needs assistants in our schools who are caring for the most vulnerable children. The Minister had children's rights legislation passed here but she failed to support those children with special needs and our other vulnerable people with disabilities on whom the Government imposed a cut. The Government had choices to make in regard to the respite care grant and the mobility allowance, but it attacked the most vulnerable.

The Minister should ask the unemployed teachers and the teachers working in classes of more than 30 pupils about this economic statement. She should ask the members of the Garda Síochána for whom she is responsible. I assume she attended the conference yesterday unlike the previous Minister who decided there were more important things to do. She should ask those gardaí on the front line who do not even have a battery for their flashlights, proper equipment, patrol cars, radios or the support of the Government or the Minister's predecessor. They are expected to police the countryside and get the public to support them, which they do and without which no police force can operate.

The Minister should ask the nurses, and the people providing GP services who are on the front line now because the hospital waiting lists are so long. When the hospitals get an order from on high the trolleys are cleared and the people are sent home but they are back in the GP surgery that night or early the next morning.

The Minister of State, Deputy Tom Hayes, left the Chamber when he saw me arrive. I was glad to be here for part of his statement because he is not living in the Tipperary I am living in. He is not living in the Tipperary that Dan Breen represented. He is a man who has made many false promises but he came in here tonight and said we should be honest and true to ourselves. He would hardly know himself if he looked in the mirror because he reneged on the people of Tipperary. He has reneged on the family in Golden, his own village, about whom I addressed the Minister for Transport. I refer to the O'Brien and Esmonde families who lost loved ones off Helvick Head and who asked the Minister of State to intervene on their behalf with the powers that be. I was sitting in their house one day, yet he walked past the front door of the O'Brien household in Golden.

The Minister of State asked the people to make a judgment in terms of who they would elect on the next occasion. They have already made a judgment on the Minister of State. I do not wish him ill-will but he is not fooling the people of Tipperary, and the Government is not fooling the people of Ireland. He spoke about forestry of which he is in charge. People cannot get their forestry grants. It is all announcements and spin. He mentioned at the Rock of Cashel recently that 18 million walkers visited the queen of the lands last year. A journalist approached me and asked what he was talking about. I said he was probably talking about the 18 million trees he is out counting. I do not believe he knows the wood from the trees.

The Minister for Justice and Equality should ask the small business people what they make of this Government. She should ask the small farmers, and the postmasters. It has been relentless attack after attack. In terms of Food Harvest 2020, I salute the farmers who are making an investment now but I am concerned about the huge investment in milk in terms of all the eggs in one basket while we get a lecture from the Government about the previous Government and people being more prudent about investment. There is huge investment which is good for the country but I hope the milk prices will remain high for those young farmers and their families and that it is not another major con.

I am glad the Minister for Justice and Equality is present. I have contacted the Minister on a number of issues and she has replied, which I appreciate. She should ask the people whose homes are being repossessed what they think. She should ask the family in Davidstown, in Castledermot, about the attack visited on their farm at 2 o'clock in the morning by what was nothing other than a marauding third force operating there. The Minister is the Minister with responsibility for justice. We have the Garda Síochána, the Garda Reserve and the Army. There should not be another force going around in balaclavas with Alsatian dogs, who use cranes, bulldozers and so on and engage in other despicable practices, visiting households at 2 o'clock in the morning. I am glad the Taoiseach accepted here last week it that was wrong and should not be happening.

The Government should call in the receivers. It should bring in some decent legislation to deal with that. The Taoiseach suggested to me that we should table an amendment to the impending legislation. Some regulation must be brought in to control the receivers. It is a lucrative business but they are resorting to bringing in mercenaries from armies abroad, not all legitimate, including former members of the RUC, who dress in camouflage and balaclavas and crawl across people's property with Alsatian dogs on the loose.

The Minister should pinch herself and listen to the people who are waiting to lose their homes. There are endless lists for repossession in every courthouse in every major town. We warned the Government about that but it would not listen. The Minister should ask David Hall or any of the people who represent those people. I ask her to listen to the people.

The Government then proceeds with nonsense projects. The former Minister and now European Commissioner, Phil Hogan, Big Phil, was responsible for Irish Water, Uisce Éireann. I said that the only thing I liked about it was the name - an t-ainm Gaeilge. It is a travesty and an insult. It is a corrupt organisation, and the Minister knows that. It is a failed project.

I expect people to have to pay for water but they should not have to pay for fat cats, retired county managers, retired senior officials and consultants who do not have a clue what they are doing. Gardaí are being put in an invidious position because they are trying to safeguard the people installing the meters. I condemn any attack on any working man, regardless of what he is doing. Those people are doing their job. It is a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. The gardaí must pay the water charge also, and we saw where the movements of their families were being put up on social media. That is reprehensible. We must support our gardaí. They do not want to be doing that job.

EirGrid is another big business project. Fine Gael and the Labour Party have abandoned the principles founded in my home town of Clonmel. EirGrid has come back repeatedly with new proposals. They are all untrue. I cannot use the word that starts with "l" but they are all false and misleading. They are trying to trick the people but the people have awoken, and they are fighting this North-South interconnector, the one in the south east and all the rest of them, regardless of the glossy brochures they produce or election tactics being engaged in to delay it.

The Government has closed down local government, including my own borough town council in Clonmel, one of the seven boroughs in the country. It has taken away democracy from the people, a deliberate ploy supported by its masters in Europe. I am surprised it did not have Ms Merkel or some others in the Visitors Gallery to listen to its spring economic statement and what it is doing to the people of Ireland. It is penalising and pillorying them. It is trying to break their spirit but it will not break it. It was not broken when the republican people in south Tipperary, Dan Breen and others, fought the fight for Irish freedom, and it will not be broken now because they will arise and vote. The Minister of State, Deputy Tom Hayes, asked them to make a judgment, and they have made it. They will go into the ballot box with a peann luaidhe but they will not be voting for Fine Gael or Labour candidates because those parties have no interest in the ordinary people.

The Government parties are running two referendum campaigns. The referendum to lower the age of qualification for the presidency is a mockery. It is just an add-on, just as the Government added on a referendum to provide for a new layer of judges at the time of the children's referendum. I do not blame the Minister, it was the previous Minister who was responsible. That was done without regard to the number of cases they would hear, what their workload would be or if they would clear the backlog. What are they doing? Statutory instruments have been put in place to allow cases to be held, as in the case of the farmer in Athy, half an hour before the due time. A judge heard that case and sent that man to prison when he was not even present at the time. I believe 11 o'clock was the time proposed.

I ask the Minister to introduce some regulation of the members of the Judiciary who must be independent. They have to behave and uphold the law fairly, honestly and in public, not behind closed doors. Gardaí have been sent in to Waterford court and other courts to stop people being advocates for people whose houses were being repossessed. They could not afford barristers so they had advocates working on their behalf but they were locked out. That is not justice. I ask the Minister to have some decency and try to address that issue.

I mentioned the O'Brien family. What about the families of the victims of the Omagh bombing? Has the Minister met them yet? The previous Minister refused to meet them in spite of the Taoiseach promising me at an Ard-Fheis that he would meet them. He said there would be an open door policy, but he has turned his back on them.

What about the case of the late Fr. Niall Molloy? There are approximately 20 other serious cases of miscarriage of justice, and I hope the Minister will deal with them. She is a new Minister for Justice and Equality and I wish her well, but this Government has turned its back on the people. It got one of the finest mandates any Government ever got.

I know there was a financial crisis. I voted for the bank guarantee, which is the worst mistake I ever made. Fine Gael voted for it too and cannot have all the nice bits while blaming the past Government. It had the choice to stand for the working people and ordinary housewives and homemakers, but it abandoned them for Ms Merkel and greater glory. The Taoiseach says that if we pass this referendum, we will be a greater country for it. I do not know what country he is living in. I do not even know if he is going to vote "Yes" himself. No one knows because he is on a spinning top and he does not know when he is going to fall off it. He has broken every promise and commitment he ever made. He has been untrue to himself, his family and his people.

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