Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thought the Minister said seven. There are two yet to be appointed. I heard the Minister's speech and I listened to it. They cannot account for the million illegal breath tests that were never carried out. Who are we going to get honesty from? I want an outside agency brought in from a faraway country to come in here and clean up the ODCE and An Garda Síochána and deal with this. For years colleagues and I have been asking the Competition Authority to deal with many issues. We might as well be talking to the wall. They are toothless, useless and fruitless. They are the same as most of the quangos that have been set up. The Government and the last Government promised to get rid of quangos yet they are like mushrooms coming up. Every shower of rain there is a new one coming up and they are bigger and bigger. They are magic mushrooms. They are magic for jobs and positions. They are magic for them to bring in their advisers and friends and magic to do nothing but wave a wand and go hide and go asleep. They get offices and CEOs and pretend they are working. They go to conferences and travel the world but do not serve the people such as the people in Caranua who were the unfortunate victims of abuse. There are unfortunate victims here.

Over a decade or two decades, families that tried to make a living in small business have been destroyed. With regard to small business, yes, there is law but Deputy Pringle is right that the price of one's suit dictates who one knows and what one knows and it has not changed under this Government or this Taoiseach. The Taoiseach is retiring now and going off into the sunset. I wish him well in that. I do not wish him ill-health but we need an audit of all the regulatory bodies because they are not regulatory bodies. They are just compliance bodies. They are regulatory bodies for the ordinary people. There Inland Fisheries (Amendment) Bill 2017 is being forced at the moment. People who went out to clean rivers to stop bridges being taken away were prosecuted illegally by the fisheries board. We are passing legislation with gusto to make it legal retrospectively. They were fined. Some of them had to go to court three times and pay thousands of euro to barristers and solicitors. They were found guilty and named and shamed in the paper illegally. We cannot do anything with these people because they are too powerful. We just play games with them. It is on the agenda for next week finally to pass the Inland Fisheries (Amendment) Bill 2017. Honest people were trying to ensure rivers were safe and clean and that fish could live in them. They were trying to save roads, bridges and properties. They were prosecuted illegally by men in suits waving badges at them and now we are passing legislation here to make it legal. It stinks from high heaven. The Minister should be ashamed to be a part of it. She has been part of this Government and she supported the last one.

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