Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Pensioners are being undermined by the Labour Party, of all parties. Deputy Brendan Howlin holds a prestigious position among the big four in the Government, with the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach, but 100,000 older people are living in deprivation. They are not my words but those of respected organisations and the likes of Fr. Peter McVerry. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, could not deliver a house yesterday, not even a prefab. He would not deliver a hen house and has been a shambles. There is a housing and homelessness crisis in which people are dying on the streets day after day. Some 2,000 family units were approved in Tipperary, the Minister's own county, where 5,600 people are on the waiting list, but he has not delivered a dozen houses in his term as Minister. He talks a load of codswallop about the delivery of this and that, but not even a hen house or a tree house has been delivered. His Department and the local authorities will not deliver houses either. The people who can build them are in the voluntary housing sector, but they are being overlooked because there is no profit to be made and none of them is involved in a big company. Somebody else is going to come in and supply prefab houses and they will make profits. As my colleague said, it is not a good idea to create fat cats elsewhere.

NAMA should never have been set up as it does not act in the interests of ordinary people, yet the Minister for Finance is depending on it to deliver 90,000 houses, some 90% of which will be in Dublin and to hell with the rest of the country - anyone outside the Pale does not matter. I am surprised at him, but that is the way the Government has acted. They will probably deliver no more than 90 for their friends who will not sell houses to people. I have a book in my hand entitled, Waiting for the Sheriff. That is what hundreds of thousands of people are waiting for. I know a man in Tipperary who was given an eviction letter yesterday during the Budget Statement of the Minister for Finance.

What will he do given that he will be out of his house? He is in a very serious and perilous situation, as are many others throughout the country.

The Government Members have lost sight of the ordinary people and they are in a cocoon. I saw some Government Members last night who were ecstatic with the budget. They must think the people are wicked fools altogether if they are going to believe this. I recognise the effort the Government has made in some areas. I welcome it and give credit where credit is due. However, we need to remember the torture, the inhumanity.

This book contains the names of 90 Government Members who voted for the eviction Bill - the so-called Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act. It is eviction legislation to make sheriffs and receivers richer and fatter through their disgusting charges. The way they are treating the people is inappropriate by putting members of An Garda Síochána out there, if they have not enough to do, to defend the sheriffs and receivers. It is a low-grade industry that is paralysing people and has no interest in anybody. They are only interested in how much money they can make.

In some cases the wives or partners of the sheriffs are already the highest court officers in the land. It is despicable and disgusting, but it is all fine because they are all friends of Government Members. It is all friends of Government Members who are appointed to the Judiciary. They promised us new politics and a new era of transparency. This is the most non-transparent Government.

When I first became a Member of this House eight years ago we had a budget day and we had everything in the budget. It started to change shortly after I arrived, but now we get the budget the week before. Last Friday night in the middle of a terrible tragedy in Dublin, the Government was able to announce €1.5 billion, a massive Supplementary Estimate, for health. Why can the Minister not be honest with the people who are waiting for four years for an operation in pain and agony? Why can he not put the money into the hospitals? Why can he not support the front-line nurses and doctors? He comes out with his codswallop about having a free GP-visit card for under 12s, without any consultation with the AGP or IMO. He promised to renegotiate a 40 year old contract. He can run but he cannot hide. He cannot bully the people. Thankfully, young children are normally the healthiest people, except for the ones with special needs and serious illnesses.

The Government has savagely taken medical cards from older people and left them to die in agony. We also have the issue with the trolley count. Why will the Minister not deal with those people and give them medical cards when they need them without any duress and trauma? The same applies with special needs assistants in schools.

The Government parties want to look after the rich, the people who fill their coffers, who go to their breakfast mornings and dinners to support them. The Labour Party Members should be ashamed of themselves. They came to Clonmel to hold a conference two years ago and they could not even hold it. That is a sad state of affairs from what used to be an honourable party. Someone said the Labour Party Deputies would come back here after the general election in a minibus. I think they will come back in a hybrid car, which might only be a two-seater, possibly a four-seater or at most a seven-seater. The people are furious with Labour because it has abandoned them. It has abandoned them in the countryside, in the streets of Dublin and everywhere else.

The Government will not pass legislation. On three occasions I introduced a Bill, the Scrap and Precious Metal Dealers Bill, to protect people in their homes. It will not look at the bail laws. It has too many friends who are solicitors and there are too many Cabinet members who are solicitors and barristers. It will not look at free legal aid because it has too many people making too much money out of it. However, it will allow people to be persecuted in their homes in County Tipperary and everywhere else without giving them any protection. It can pass law after law on gay marriage and abortion - anything bar legislation to protect and support the citizens of the country who go out and work every day. They are the entrepreneurs in business who give employment and want to give employment. However, the Government wants to stick to its fancy work in legislation - nothing that would put bread and butter on the table. That would not matter to the Labour Party anymore. It is the modern liberal party. It wants to make its dent in government and it has made a fair dent in it, but, by God, it will not be able to make much of a dent after the general election.

As for the Taoiseach, it is enough for me to say Castlebar is closed down. It is a sad town. People are telling me that the gates are locked on the one business and industrial estate, which is a sad indictment. This morning a man told Deputy Fitzmaurice that people cannot walk on the bogs the Government is trying to close down. People have been cutting turf for hundreds of years. We want someone to vindicate our rights and not to be dictated to by Europe and worse still dictated to by officials here in Ireland. Let the people live. They will live if they are let live and not persecuted with taxes after taxes, while big business is being supported. On NAMA, I could think of another acronym to describe it better. I said on the night it was established it was like a wild animal being released in the woods; no one would know where it would end up.

The Government thinks it will deliver 90,000 houses; it will not deliver 90 and they will be for its friends. They will not sell the houses. I spoke about a man being evicted today. It will not sell the house to his brother-in-law because it wants to sell it to its friends. This is disgusting corruption that is going on in this country and the Government should be ashamed of itself.

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