Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am also delighted to be able to speak here tonight on this Bill, which we discussed in the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government with the Minister. I am disappointed he has gone. I know he could not stay all night but he has left the Chamber. Much of the Bill came about as a result of the recommendations of the Mahon tribunal. The public in Tipperary, and the public all over the country and I, are sick and tired of tribunals and more tribunals and hearings by retired eminent judges. When someone fills out a form for a college course, they will have to put in a position for a retired judge or justice of the peace because it is inquiry after inquiry. It is like a spinning top. Nobody knows when it is going to stop.

We had the Mahon tribunal, and there are lots of references to it in the explanatory memorandum. The tribunal went on for 997 days and cost hundreds of millions of pounds, with still more to be paid in euro because there are still outstanding challenges regarding fees and expenses. What happened? What was the result apart from keeping journalists busy, selling newspapers and exposing dirty laundry in public? We have all these recommendations and are acting on some of them, but no real charges were brought. We know that the file is still with the Garda Commissioner and we do not know whether any charges will be preferred by the DPP. If they do not hurry up, all the people they were investigating will be dead. It is like something one would see in outer Mongolia. There is no effective accountability. We are waiting and waiting for the DPP. We do not know if the files have been referred and, if they have been referred, we do not know when the DPP will come back with recommendations for prosecution, if any. That is a very unhealthy situation in our country.

We know it came about because of the boom in Dublin. I listened to Deputy Broughan, for whom I have great respect. He lamented the fact that people in the country complain that Dublin gets everything. We are complaining with some justification that Dublin gets most of the cake. There is congestion and huge problems but if Deputy Broughan was living in Tipperary, east Cork or even south or north Kildare, not to mention Kerry, he would see that we get the crumbs. We do not even get the crumbs. We might get a bit of the vapour that blows off the mist from what goes on in the city. It is an imbalance that must be addressed, but this Bill does not do so.

This Bill does not address many issues. We talk about setting up a regulator as if it was the Almighty. We have regulators galore. It is a mushrooming industry. There are regulators for everything and they are regulating nothing. We see the insurance scandals at the moment where people and families are being ripped off and plundered for car insurance, house insurance and business insurance. We have a regulator, but what is he or she doing? I am talking about the office of the regulator. It is nothing personal. It is doing absolutely nothing. It has no powers and the same is true of the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission. When I and lots of other people have complained to it and asked it to intervene, we are told that it is not its area, it cannot intervene and it does not have enough enforcement officers. It is a joke.

Ordinary people have to comply. For example, there was a dawn raid quite recently in Tipperary involving up to 14 small bus operators - the little people who are vulnerable and can be challenged. There were huge dawn raids and their computers, phones and records were taken because there was a fear that they were coming together to try to survive and get a base price for every mile for every student they brought to school. I do not know whether there was a breach of competition laws, and I hope there was none, but there was ferocity, force, showing off and muscle flexing involved. They came back with the gardaí if they were not allowed in and they terrorised some people who have been in business for 40 years because they had phone calls, letters or correspondence with other people. What are we supposed to be? All these small businesses are being driven out of existence for quoting for State work and the competition authorities are coming the heavy with them. Some of them have not had their computers or records returned. Records of up to 30 or 40 years have been taken away. They have the time to do that but they cannot touch the big people. It is not about Dublin as such. It is all about who one is rather than what one is - .ordinary people have to put up with all the legislation and regulation.

This is toothless. I said this to the Minister in committee as well. We must have the regulator and in this case, the regulator can be overruled by the Minister. The regulator can make a decision and the Minister can overrule it, but the Minister must explain to the House or on the public record why he or she overruled it. That is a good thing because we cannot keep appointing regulators. We are going to have a public competition and it will be transparent, but it will not be anyone we have not heard of who gets the job. It will not be anyone who is a very eminent person, for example, an unemployed person with degrees or qualifications. It will be an insider who has probably been in the public service. That is what happens. There will be a bit of accountability, but I know it is very difficult for the Minister and the people writing the legislation to couch this so that we do not have a regulator who is toothless, fruitless, does not even have a peann luaidhe to write a letter, as has been the case so far, has no accountability, cannot be challenged by anybody, and says he or she has no power.

We ask questions in the Dáil and the Minister tells us the regulator is independent. We ask questions in the Dáil about the HSE and are told "the HSE is not under my Department". We have abdicated responsibility and control. We are elected, the Government is elected by Deputies and this Government is, thankfully, a minority Government because there are good restrictions on it and the Cabinet, but there is no accountability. It is a case of just handing it over to the regulator. There is a plethora of new regulators. We build new offices for them and then we have to build regional offices for them with all the equipment and God knows what. There is a plethora of staff around them and a board must also be appointed. It is very important to have five or ten people on the board that can be replaced every couple of years. It was mentioned by an earlier speaker that we are supposed to have a process for appointing board members. There is nothing new about it. It is about insiders, friends and cronies. This is what has gone on and it is still going on. For the first four years I was here, I listened to Fine Gael attacking Fianna Fáil for all the board members it appointed but, my God, there were no slow learners on that side of the House when they got over there. They filled, packed and stuffed them with all their cronies. Look at where the former Minister, Phil Hogan, is now.

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