Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am not having fun when I see this stuff. It is not fun scrambling around trying to figure out what is in legislation only to discover that we are extending one of the most controversial aspects of what the Government has done over the past year. I refer to the fact that property taxes and motor taxes are going into Irish Water. That is not funny. If one asks the demonstrators to identify the issues that have really infuriated them, they will refer to this one most often. If they do not, it certainly will be very near the top of the list. We now discover that the Government is to do this again this year, although it said it would not. Some €500 million is involved. That is news, in my opinion. Was it well flagged? When did the Minister of State know about that? When did he decide on it and why could we not see the legislation relating to it before last Thursday afternoon, after the final deadline had passed? It is because the Government was pulling a fast one. There is no other explanation.

People take these matters seriously. Perhaps in years gone by, people just dismissed the Dáil generally. However, in recent years, as we can see what is happening in Greece and the numbers on the streets, ordinary people are actually beginning to become very interested in the details of what goes on in here. The more they look, the worse it gets. There are games, followed by games and further games. It is all regarded as a big laugh but we are actually playing with important stuff. It is very important and affects the lives of human beings, the macro-economy and all the big issues that are now being debated, including debts and deficits, the very phenomena that are leading to the big crisis in Greece. Does Ms Angela Merkel know? Perhaps she will threaten to cut off the finance to our banks if she discovers we are inflating the deficit to line the pockets of Denis O'Brien and the other contractors who are making money out of Irish Water. This is just another example, but a big one, of what the Government has been up to in trying to subvert the democratic process. It is a disgrace. Is the Minister of State honestly saying these matters do not need to be debated forensically on Committee Stage? We will not get the chance to do so.

Committee Stage should allow for a proper back-and-forward debate in which one can ask the Minister questions and double check the answers with a view to contributing again on Report Stage. That is the whole point of Committee Stage. The Government has circumvented that deliberately. If anybody suggested, in terms of legislation generally, that we should just get rid of Second Stage or Committee Stage and instead have just one stage of debate in the Dáil, would we not be up in arms? Would anybody who believes in democracy and the purpose of this Chamber not say it was utterly unacceptable? However, the Government has done so with this Bill, deliberately. It has done so with the IBRC legislation also.

I will conclude although I feel like going on forever just to annoy the Government because it played so fast and loose with the whole process. That is why people are out on the streets. The Government is fundamentally undermining people's belief in the democratic process. Deputy Shatter stood up and gave out about the protests and referred disgracefully to fascists, using unbelievable language. It is really outrageous language that he should have been forced to withdraw. If he wants to understand why people get angry and lose faith in the democratic system, he should realise it is because of that kind of carry-on. The Government is digging the grave of the very democracy or type of democracy it purports to care so much about. It is playing with fire. The Minister of State, Deputy Paudie Coffey, should think about this although he seems to be so inured to the cynicism in the House that it is probably pointless even making these points.

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