Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to speak on this motion. If this were next week, it would be more appropriate, as it would be Hallowe'en.

7 o’clock

We could all come in wearing masks and have the phony war and phony games. One would think we were out of recession. Admittedly, the troika is gone — we banished it in time — but we are not out of recession, or anything like it. We are sick and tired of hearing about economic focus and talk of the boom in Dublin, but the recovery has not extended far beyond Newlands Cross and has not been felt by many in rural areas. The Minister of State, Deputy Joe McHugh, is keenly aware of that from his constituency in Donegal, just as the Taoiseach should be aware of it in Castlebar. The economy is on its knees but the Taoiseach is in here in a cocoon believing that he is going to visit multinationals, schools or whatever he decides to visit. He is running from pillar to post, but he will not engage with anyone or listen to any of the people who are suffering and have suffered because of the FEMPI legislation. We have scampi one day and FEMPI the next. It is just a mixed bag; it is hit and miss. What is now going on now is farcical.

The night before the budget, there were Supplementary Estimates worth €1.5 million. The health budget is to overrun by €600 million this year. The figures are totally contrived to give the impression that there is a rise in funding for health services. I heard Sarah Burke going through those figures on my way home on Thursday evening and she implied there was less money in the kitty. It is a trick-o-the-loop by spin doctors. All these people are set to gain more from the FEMPI cuts reversal than anybody else because they are in the higher tax bracket. For too long there has been a cosy cartel. I have said throughout my eight years as a Member that the spin doctors and officials have their hands around the handlebars of power. They will not let go to get their hands around them. A hammer and chisel or jackhammer would not get their fingers off the handlebars such is their grip. It causes such paralysis in the country. Most of these officials could not run a shop, farm or any business. I have said time and again that many of the public officials at senior level should be asked to run a shop or business and see how hard it is to open one, pay rates, generate turnover, pay for light and heat and pay rent, staff, taxes and everything else. Self-employed people have little for themselves.

There are hundreds of thousands of low-paid workers who did not gain all along, even though SIPTU is attached to and in unison with the Labour Party. We know that, but the other unions are in cahoots also. The higher one's wage, the greater one's increase every time because of collective bargaining and everything else. We are told that what is occurring now must happen because of the Lansdowne Road agreement. I wonder whether any staff from the troika are looking in now to see what is going on. They were in a merry dance. There was a merry dance, Hallowe'en tricks and a trick-o-the-loop, and those concerned got blindfolded. I met the staff eight or nine times and I challenged them and it was a joke. They told me two and a half or three years ago at a meeting that there would be a focus on and growth in the country. I asked them who told them that but they looked at one another and would not answer. There were language barriers and everything else. I might not be the clearest always but I know what I want to say anyway and I know what is going down in the countryside because I listen to the people. I am a Teachta Dála, a messenger boy for the people, in this House and I will not forget that while I have the honour and privilege of being here. Eventually I had to get the facts out of the officials and I learned they were told what they were told by the senior civil servants. I asked them why they did not go down to any rural town outside the Pale. They did not go outside the Pale. I refer to places such as Dún Laoghaire. I hear on shows such as Joe Duffy's about the demise of villages and the heartlands of towns because of exorbitant rates and various schemes and because the authorities have been in bed with the big supermarkets and have allowed the latter to build outside all the town centres, thus killing off the towns. This is because they fund the political parties. The system stinks. The people to whom I was talking said they were told what they were told by the senior officials. These are the same senior officials who told Mr. Brian Lenihan — Lord have mercy on him — what he had to do. He told us we had to come up and vote-----

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