Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

IBEC. It is big business. I see them around here all the time. I know them from a former incarnation. Some of them are in the Construction Industry Federation. They are not interested in the little people. We have to recover na daoine beaga. It is na teaghlaigh go léir agus na feirmeoirí go léir who will recover it. They are on the ground every day, all day, 365 days a year. They are not interested in a quick buck. They are the cogs and chains keeping the system going and they must be supported.

Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí. Young people are also not supported. It is awful to see young employees being sucked into these companies. They were in here with great aplomb. They have been brought into our towns. I am mostly talking about Tesco, which is in many towns in Tipperary. They are welcomed when they announce all the jobs but there is no talk of the jobs they displaced. There is no talk of the sweet deals that are done for planning fees and planning conditions and everything else for them. There is no talk of sucking the vibrancy out of the towns which they have done in my town of Clonmel and Tipperary and further afield. They do not even bank their money in our banks. They do not even bank it here. It hurts me to see it.

People have a right to buy online and use delivery services. Some people are sick or working so maybe they have to. One sees the Tesco vans up and down every road now. We have gone back to the days of 70 years ago - I was talking to Deputy Healy-Rae about this earlier - when a man would go around selling stuff out of the back of a van. A lot of them grew into great entrepreneurs. Now it is done more clinically and costly and with no respect for the workers delivering it. That was a different situation. It is the same kind of a principle but it is really mean-spirited. The zero-hour contracts, as I have alluded to, are just not acceptable.

The colleges have caught the contagion. Many people in college have told me that they spend five days a week in college but might only have 12 hours of tuition with lecturers. That is ridiculous, especially if it is spread over the five days. They cannot get a job or anything else because they are in college for two hours one day, one hour the next day and three hours the next day, which is ridiculous. It is a contagion which suits some of the higher up people in the universities and institutes who are doing that. It is not good. Families have to support their sons and daughters in universities and colleges and they like to have them get a bit of part-time work because it is good for them. It is a good grounding for them. They cannot do that if they have two hours in college every day. Why can they not have the lectures over two or three days a week and let them carry on with other activities. It must be streamlined. I do not know why the Minister is shaking her head.

See this speech in context