Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The Minister can answer. I will continue. Should companies that are struck off by the Companies Registration Office for not filing accounts be allowed back on the register very quickly? The reason I ask these questions, as the Minister is aware, is that the hypocrisy is rank. It is not just the Minister, Deputy Doherty. There are many Deputies in this Dáil who have been involved in this kind of thing. The Minister was involved in just one company, but it is a little bit rich that she is now going after people who owe minuscule amounts compared with €286,000. When people are caught for social welfare fraud or overpayments, they repay the money. Companies do not. What happens? They get write-downs of their debts, they go into liquidation, the bank writes down some of it and the creditors must forgo whatever they are owed. Companies never pay the full amount but the people who do end up getting it docked for the rest of their lives until it is paid off, as the Minister is proposing, are to be named and shamed. Here is the real Fine Gael. It is not the cute socks and running in the park with world leaders. This is the Fine Gael that despises the poor and has one law for the rich. It is the bear-toothed, Tory Fine Gael coming out very clearly for anyone to see. Fine Gael under-resourced the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, which led to the likes of Seánie FitzPatrick getting off the hook. There were many other reasons but certainly under-resourcing was an aspect. The Government was asked six times for extra funds and staff for that but it was not interested. Instead, we have this high-profile policy to attack the poor being proposed, and the hypocrisy is rank, while in here we have Deputies who owe money left, right and centre and they are let off the hook, including the Minister, Deputy Doherty.

Fine Gael was asked several times to take a more serious approach to white-collar crime, but it has demonstrated that it is going to put all the light in one direction. No one condones anyone ripping off the Department of Social Protection.

However, all the arguments have been made and the Government seems to be only concerned with poor people, many of whom are women who are overly dependent on social welfare, who might owe money back and, as has been said, putting their names out to be shared on social media, something the Minister is hugely conscious of herself. The Minister needs to stand up and answer for her hypocrisy and that of Fine Gael. For her promotion, she is faithfully carrying out the policy the Taoiseach, Deputy Leo Varadkar, promised in the election.

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