Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too am delighted to be able to speak today although it saddens me to have to speak. The former director of the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, Mr. Paul Appleby, has declined to comment on whether he will co-operate with the report and audit into the agency's role in the trial of Seán FitzPatrick. Let us think about that. Mr. Appleby has received retirement benefits worth almost €590,000 since he retired five years. Controversially, he retired early on an annual pension of €73,000 on top of a €225,000 lump sum, most of it tax free.

I thank the judge and the jury in the case for staying so long. I thank the judge and all juries that give their valuable time. I thank the judge because if the trial ended long ago, we would not know any of this. This particular judge has done a great service to the State. People are criticising him for going on so long with it but he has done a powerful service to the State. There was a media blackout for an awful lot of it. We would not know anything about it. I thank him from the House on behalf of the people of Tipperary.

The Minister said people have suffered. There are shortcomings in the report. If the Minister's meagre answer is that it fell short, it is pathetic. What went wrong? It is all very wrong. It was wrong from the start. Mr. Appleby was in the Competition Authority where he took on cases. The solicitor was involved with CRH. There is a long history here of abject failures to act and control big business when CRH was crushing small people in my county. They were good, honest, family business people who gave huge employment as their people before them. CRH wanted a monopoly. Writing to the Competition Authority was like writing to Santa Claus. At least one gets something from Santa Claus. One got sweet Fanny Adams - excuse the expression - from the Competition Authority or any of those authorities. It is all a racket. They all get bought into it. They are all self-serving and they serve the big business. To hell with the ordinary people. They came from the Competition Authorityand were appointed across to this so-called agency. It is another quango that has done nothing for the people. It has done nothing to explain the cost. We are going to give a fat pension to the head of it for five years. Then we have a solicitor who was with the Competition Authority and the DPP for years and now he is the main man who drafted all the statements incorrectly and took the statements incorrectly. I wonder how many people were charged under this solicitor's watch in the DPP's office in the past. If he is so incompetent to make such a monumental cock-up, what about the people who were prosecuted? I happen to know of somebody the ODCE prosecuted. He was a developer in Dublin who had an apartment block. He was brought before the courts, severely treated and fined €10,000 for not holding management meetings. It is a case of who and what people are, as Deputy Pringle said. It is a case of who people are and who they know. This is outrageous. It stinks from the high heaven. There has been no appetite since I came in here in this or the previous Government to tackle this issue. If there was, we would give them the resources. We would give them all the resources they want.

We saw last night Caranua getting the resources and what is it doing with them? It is setting up headquarters and appointing CEOs and a clatter of staff. The public person it was supposed to represent has been dismissed and diminished. We will celebrate thecentenary of the Soloheadbeg ambush in a year and a half's time and the men who fought to give us our freedom. They are turning in their graves because we have been raped and plundered by big business and the systems that are supposed to protect the people. Senior officials the whole way across the board have become self-serving. It is all about career promotion and then they might be seconded someplace else, retire and go in as advisers and consultants the week after. It is rotten. It is a merry-go-round and it is rotten.

The ordinary people I represent on a daily basis are crying in anguish. They are sick and traumatised and many of them have gone to their grave by suicide because of the cock-up that happened with the banks in this country, because of the vulture funds and because of Mr. FitzPatrick and all of those people. This charade has been going on for ten years now. I thank the judge for keeping it going on long enough to find out the information. I have been down to the courts with families. I have been in the banks with families. They are merciless to those people. They are mercenaries who have no mercy or understanding for people. I call them mercenaries because that is what they are. That is what the officials in this case are too. They are not doing their job. They have a duty to be held to account. Mr. Appleby may not co-operate. He will probably get immunity like the official who shredded and burned all the files. He went down to St. John of God's, God help us. He may be ill and he has immunity from prosecution. It would not be in a Mills and Boon novel. One could not write it.

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