Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I did and fair enough. We had to. The Government will not catch people out like that again. The emergency has passed. The Minister for Finance and others were telling the whole country and the world during the last election about the recovery, but it forgot to think the recovery did not go outside the Red Cow. The recovery must be afraid of the cow. It must think it is a bull and it cannot get out past it, but it cannot get down the country anyway.

As I said, we must deal with ordinary people who are putting their shoulder to the wheel when asked. They have made sacrifices and what are they getting? They are getting a slap in the face and are told to get lost and eat cake. That is what they are being told, as they were told by the famous lady across the pond.

Deputy Harty has eloquently spoken about the GPs and what is happening there with the drain of GPs and the frustration. The Government must remember all GPs are self-employed people who not only under the hippocratic oath do their best to cure people's health and look after people, but they employ a plethora of people and they pay rates, wages and insurance. Deputy Harty got elected on the no doctor no village campaign and he is dead right. What do we want? Do we want people to die on the sides of the road? Deputy Harty gave the figures on the numbers of people being treated by GPs instead of in accident and emergency departments. Accident and emergency departments are inaccessible and the Government does not want people in there and that is quite obvious. GPs pay staff, including nurses and receptionists. They have all types of services, such as chiropodists, and they provide a great service. They need to be supported before they are all gone.

We know what the Minister said at the last election. The Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Acts 2009 to 2015 have been used to cut public sector workers' pay and pensions as well as those of general practitioners, as I said. I also want to mention local authority workers and ordinary workers in the HSE and Departments. They are getting the brunt of it, and I salute them for how they have championed it. Many of them have left. Many of them are on family income supplement. I spoke to a man this evening who is an excellent local authority worker in Clonmel whose wife is a nurse. They are fleeced and it is not fair. They put up with it for a while for the emergency but the emergency has gone. The Government still has a punitive tax regime brought in for an emergency, and for which we voted, but we have been double-crossed and the people have been double-crossed. It is time the Government sat up and listened. Deputy Wallace said that type of apartheid system would not be accepted here. We met teachers this evening who are protesting.

I also blame the trade unions. They have a responsibility. They got into bed with the Government and negotiated the deals by which they knew their influence would be less than before. They have to take some of the blame themselves. The head guys there are not badly paid either. Let us be fair and honest. We vote for something and support it when it is needed, but we will not keep supporting something that is not needed. It is a con job and the people are being conned.

The ordinary workers, whom we expect in the storms, to grit the roads in the frost and to keep accident and emergency departments open, are not getting a fair crack of the whip and they are tired. They are tired of waiting. I said before, they were waiting in the long grass for the Government at the last election and they were. They got stuck under the tufts of grass like the hares and hid and survived, but they are coming at the Government again because they are not fools. They can see what is going on. They have given the service and they have done the State some service and now it is time to treat them with some modicum of respect.

The continued use of emergency legislation in the absence of an emergency would amount to an abuse of Government power - it does amount to an abuse of power - and it is disproportionate. One example of the way FEMPI has led to serious consequences in terms of the health infrastructure is the cuts imposed on general practitioners. These were savage cuts of 35% or 40%. No one could sustain that. The National Association of General Practitioners, NAGP, has called on the Government to reverse urgently the FEMPI cuts in general practice. The Government is not listening. It speaks about negotiating a new contract with the two doctors' organisations. The contract is 40 years old. No Third World country would have a contract that old and out of date. The Government has been talking about negotiating it for the longest time but when will it do it? They have been disproportionately cut. I salute the GPs, particularly those in rural towns and the few left in rural villages, because they have kept the service. They have kept faith with the people. They are providing a service and getting damn little for it, only cuts and cuts.

The NAGP has also said that FEMPI was a key factor in the high rate of emigration among GPs, as the profession is not now viable in Ireland. That is a very telling statement. Huge money from their families, taxpayers and the Government is invested in GP training and what are they doing? They are going off to foreign lands and it is a shame and a pity. We should have some way to attract them back, but they will not come back if it is not attractive.

We see this every day in rural Ireland and we cannot get doctors or GPs to apply for practices. This is what the HSE tells us and what it wants. It wants to get rid of rural GPs. It tells us it advertises and cannot get people to apply. It suits the HSE. It is a big monopoly that does not care about rural Ireland. It wants to see us without a doctor. It wants to see us in pain. People are going blind and we are busing them up to the North to get treatment. People cannot walk because of their hips. There will be some amount of people bouncing into the polling booths at the next election to get rid of the Government, because they will be able to see the ballot paper and they will have thrown away the sticks, and they will be mad to jump into a car to be brought to vote, and they know how they will vote and it will not be for Fine Gael.

The Labour Party was mentioned. Cá bhfuil siad? It is like Cill Chais. Cad a dhéanfaimid feasta gan adhmad? Cad a dhéanfaimid feasta gan Páirtí an Lucht Oibre? It is not even here for the debate. It is irrelevant now. I have said for the past five years it was interested in nothing but the liberal agenda. We cannot feed people with the liberal agenda and its members found out that to their cost. They cannot pay the mortgage or house the people, so where are they? We had a debate on rural crime recently and there was not one Labour Party Deputy here for it. We have a debate tonight on this issue-----

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