Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry. Of course, he is the Minister. They might as well go out to Mount Melleray and pray to a statue out there because there is no review. Building activity has ceased in every county because of this phoney promise made by a phoney Minister. He is a man who got to know everything in a very short time. He should have crawled before he walked and walked before he ran, but he came in at a gallop and he will go out at a canter. That is as sure as I am sitting here because that is what people in Tipperary are telling me every day. There is not much point in going to Portroe to announce something, to Bansha to announce a bus shelter, and Carrick-on-Suir to announce something that someone else has already announced, or which the Minister of State was supposed to open. It was a housing development that was done in the time of the previous Government, but no one has opened it yet because the Minister will not let the Minister of State do so. He has to do everything. He was down in Cork last week because he wants to announce and open everything. If an envelope was already open, he would put gum on it and re-open it. Those are the instructions he is giving. He is only interested in self gratification, self proclamation and to hell with the ordinary people.

We are in a housing crisis but Tipperary County Council does not have a shilling for emergency accommodation. All it has are phone numbers for social welfare, a housing agency in Waterford City, and two shelters in Carlow and Kilkenny. Unfortunate homeless people do not even have a bus fare to go to Waterford, Carlow or Kilkenny. They have to send them down to the social welfare office to get the price of a bus fare.

The Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, announces millions for Tipperary but it is the greatest con job. It is time that the officials in South Tipperary County Council stood up to this blunder, bluff and baloney because they do not have a penny or a shilling. We discussed this recently at a meeting between the county manager and local Oireachtas Members. I salute the housing officers who do tremendous work under difficult conditions, but because the Government has diminished local democracy, there are no local housing authorities. South Tipperary County Council has now had to look for places as far as Portumna. Some of them do not even know where these places are and I do not blame them.

We now have less money than we had for half the county before now. It is farcical and has gone beyond the extreme. It is despicable. It is not good enough to put patches on a bicycle tyre to repair a blow-out.

I worked in the voluntary housing sector and was on the board of the Irish Council for Social Housing or ICSH. It has a huge capacity to build, develop and deliver houses quickly. There were no quick bucks, big developers, NAMAs or architects. The ICSH could deliver turn-key projects, while the Minister did diddly-squat, but the big friends of Fine Gael would not be supported then.

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