Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. We have to be careful that we do not sleepwalk into something. They are indoctrinated from as young as five or six. I am all for taking children younger than that certainly and after that we have to be very prudent and careful as to who we take. Let us not open the gates to all kinds of issues. I have considered this carefully. I have visited Rome for the past two years with 120 other international politicians to discuss the issue of what is going on in the Middle East. We were asked this year and last year by his Holiness, the Pope, to go our back to our parliaments and have proper debates on what is going on out there. Civilisation is being turned upside down because of the displacement of Christians and Muslim sects. It is not as simple as saying we will solve all these things. We are a small, neutral country and we have to do our best. I agree with the sentiments expressed by Members about what is happening in Shannon Airport but it is not simple.

I am touched by the people who want to take them in. They have genuinely offered their homes to the Red Cross and others. I am a bit bewildered that the system says we cannot cope. The system should be able to cope but it is not, so we need to be proactive and to be able to react as well.

The pictures of the child washed up on the strand and the little boy in the ambulance at war also touched the American Secretary of State who told us as much and in the most humane terms last week. He is a human being as well. I lived through a war. These people are not all monsters or people wearing alien masks. They are humans as well. It is a complex, difficult issue. I support the efforts of the Ministers, Deputies Fitzgerald and Flanagan, and others who are trying to deal with this, and we should try to help in any way we can to deal with this crisis. I want to be responsible about it and I would like to be able to say what I have to say in this Chamber without interruption. I do not interrupt other people when they speak. I have been told by the truck drivers themselves about the hassle they get from the bigger people there. It is not all one-way traffic. Some people like to pack the Gallery every night with supporters who will cheer and heckle and do not like to hear what Deputies say. I have been elected to this Parliament, thankfully, and while I am here, I will speak the truth and in accordance with my conscience and will do so without fear or favour to anybody else.

The road haulage industry must be supported. It is being penalised. No one interfered or got involved before the Brexit vote because they thought it might upset the British Government, but now we are long past the Brexit vote and the road hauliers need to be supported. They are our own workers, about whom some Deputies shout so much. They work very long and hard hours and they need the protection of our State and the French state. We need to support this industry because it is a vital cog, and the hauliers will be the people who will volunteer to bring food and clothes and everything else - volunteer drivers as well - and bring it out when it is collected by the people and donated by the people here.

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