Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is beyond belief the way people have suffered and are still suffering. That is the most annoying aspect. They are still waiting for hospital appointments for two or three years. They are waiting for brain scans, knee operations and so on. Government Members are living in a bubble if they do not realise that.

We had the charade in terms of what the banks were allowed to do in the absence of banking legislation and we know that what caused the need for FEMPI to be introduced was the collapse of the banks. The rhetoric from the Labour Party in opposition at the time was that they would burn the bondholders. Hell's fire would not be as hot as the fire for the bondholders. What did those in the Labour Party do, however? They rubbed more of the butter into the fat bankers' "you know where". It was Labour's way or Frankfurt's way. Then the Fine Gael-led Government got in the mood to implement cut after cut. However, most of those cuts affected ordinary people in the public service and their counterparts in the private sector also.

If we are ever to have an equilibrium or fair play, we will have to treat the self-employed as entrepreneurs and support them. We will have to make Enterprise Ireland help them. We had the county enterprise boards but the Minister abolished them. The Leader programmes, which were the models, were also abolished. Europa recognised the Leader programme in Ireland as a flagship for the rest of Europe but what did the former Minister, Phil Hogan, do? He attacked it and put it under the county councils.

Under Better Local Government, the Government said it would amalgamate and banish local democracy. The Government has abandoned the people. It brought forward a document, Putting People First. That was passed here but I stood up and opposed it. I brought a challenge to it in the High Court and served a summons on the former Minister, Phil Hogan, in this premises. We will go to Europe with that.

In my county, and the Government bulldozed north Tipperary and south Tipperary together, the county manager and others put all this in place before the enabling legislation was passed in this House. I have the day and dates on which it was passed. All the work was done beforehand, including the amalgamations. Processes were put in place before the legislation was passed. That is an indication of the arrogance of very senior officials in county councils and in government.

We are only rubber stamping measures in this House. It is a case of getting this legislation and being expected to vote it through. The Government has the numbers. Its Deputies will vote for it and we are cannon fodder. That is why I got speaking time tonight. I was told I would have it but then told it would be tomorrow or whenever. However, the Government speakers did not take up the slots tonight because they know they cannot talk about something that repulses them. It repulsed them when they were in opposition. They railed against what the former taoisigh, Brian Cowen and Bertie Ahern, and their Governments did at the time, particularly in the context of public spending. However, those in this Administration have learned the tricks, as I have said many times in the past five years. It almost seems that since they came to power, they have sought to punish the people for keeping them out of office for 14 years. They have a gravy train for their friends and advisers. The Government has stuffed the Judiciary with its own appointees. Openness and transparency, how are you? The Government has allowed the receivers get richer and fatter and allowed the sheriffs plunder people's homes and terrorise them.

I said last week in the debate on the budget that all our people want to do is live. They are proud people. They go out and do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay, but they want fairness. When they see what is happening with the front-line services and at the top of their own organisations, why would they not have low morale? Why is morale so low in my own county council? Why is morale so low in many parts of the public service? It is because they see that if one is a nice boy and plays ball with the system, one might get promoted. It should be about public service and productivity but it is not. It is who one knows, what one knows and a case of "Two bags full, Sir".

The Government has been a sad failure. It got one of the finest mandates any Government ever received but it has abandoned that. It is now afraid, and it cannot make a decision on when to face the people. We had the spectacle for the past three or four weeks of the Taoiseach becoming a dummy. He would not answer anybody but was finally forced to go on an RTE programme. His handlers let him out but he said the wrong thing; he was not supposed to say what he said. They meant him to say he would have the election but he does not know what he will do now. It is a pitch-and-putt or a lucky-dip job. When Joan allows it, the election will happen.

When the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, came out tonight for the third time and announced that he is buying in prefab homes for the homeless, he said he will fast-track planning laws. How does he intend to do that? He never served on a county or local council. If he had, he would understand that planning legislation cannot be fast-tracked unless the intention is to bring us in here and pass enabling legislation. He cannot do it next week because the Houses are not sitting. He will have to do it before the election, but he says he has bought 500 of these premises. This is more blunder and bluster from a Government that is big on spin. It is spinning so fast that it will spin off into the abyss one of these days.

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