Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Harty and his staff, Lorraine, in his office, and indeed Mairead and David in the Bills Office for their co-operation on this issue. It is a pity the Government could not see fit to accept it, but it knows that it will be beaten tomorrow anyway. It will also be bitten by the people when it goes to them to ask for a reaffirmation of support. Why would they not bite? The Government is presiding over a failed system which is rotting at the top. The Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, should resign. In Britain, Prime Minister May has lost four ministers and no one died. Here, 19 people are dead and many more are seriously injured and let down by a dysfunctional and unaccountable health service. The Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, is present, and I do not dispute his bone fides. I am sorry too that Deputy Neville has left, because his father was so passionate about mental health. The Minister of State knows the system is not working.

Today I pointed out that the HSE spends about €400 million every year on medication for the treatment of mental health. A mere €10 million a year, however, is spent on psychological and counselling services. How can that be right? A kindergarten child would know that there should be some kind of balance and that conditions should be treated with therapists and counselling services. I am not being critical of Deputy Harty, but the system seems to function on a prescribing basis. It creates more problems.

We need huge accountability. The Minister of State might say that we spend €917 million on mental health, but that is a mere 6.3% of the total health budget. It is dysfunctional. We raised the issue in the House this evening, but the Minister of State was not here. The Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, was here instead. It is an awful habit of the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly. Is rud an-salach é. Different Ministers are sent in to take different debates.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing us to discuss the Topical Issue matter again about a meeting we attended in Clonmel last week. There were harrowing, heartbreaking stories. The Minister of State himself met one of those people some months ago, Ms Caroline Lonergan, who told the story of her brother. He pleaded for help. He cried out for it. He was clinging on by his fingernails but was rejected by every service. He eventually took his own life. There are countless other cases of people in the same situation. There were 400 pairs of shoes at the top of the stairs in memory of all the loved ones in Tipperary who have lost their lives in recent years. It is shocking. There is an epidemic and we have a dysfunctional, uncaring system that is unable to account for itself. Why would it, when there is no political accountability?

I am not going to dwell on Mr. O'Brien. He should be gone, and good riddance to bad rubbish as far as I am concerned. He has a chequered history of breaking and flouting the law. He did it with the Irish Family Planning Association a few years ago, and despite it all got a promotion from the Minister of Health, Deputy Harris. He is now mixed up in another gold-linked chain of board memberships. He was allowed to go and get other jobs when he had a job here that he could not do. The Minister of Health does not know the system. He does not have the experience and he is inept and unable. He should run away somewhere else and not deny the people what he promised.

There are excellent people working in the health service, including the Home Carers Association. Richie Molloy is the manager of that organisation in south Tipperary. There are so many people who give front-line service, and they are jaded. GPs are voting with their feet to leave. They have contracts that are almost half a century old that the Government will not renegotiate. They are constantly threatened. They are then told by the Minister that they are going to be the front line in delivering abortion care. Some 70% have said that they will not have anything to do with it, yet the Government believes it will force them into it. If the eighth amendment is passed, we will see Marie Stopes-type enterprises popping up. Many of the Government's cosy friends are involved in this. Fundraisers have been held for the Taoiseach. The whole thing is a stinking, rotten, murky cesspit, and the Government has no respect for the people.

People are going blind, and Deputies Danny and Michael Healy-Rae and Deputy Michael Collins are helping busloads of people to get to Belfast because their cataract operations cannot be performed in the Republic. They can be done in Belfast, however, and paid for here. What kind of dysfunction is the Government presiding over? Each Member of the Government has been through the political process. They should know that if they went back to their constituencies and said they were as dysfunctional as they are, they would never be seen again. To allow this malaise to grow is incredible. There is a hospital in Cashel that is empty. Some €22.5 million was spent on it. It is a patient-free and bed-free zone. They even took out the lift. There are managers galore. They were hired right through the recession. It is dysfunctional and it is giving the electorate and the Opposition the two fingers. It did it when it had a massive majority, but it is worse now that the Government is being supported, aided and abetted by the confidence and supply agreement.

The great leader of Fianna Fáil, Deputy Micheál Martin, set up the HSE. What will he say about it? There cannot be a vote of no confidence in Minister Harris now because of the referendum, where a cosy cabal will bring a gross, desperate industry into this country to perish our people again and to banish our young people and our future generations. To hell with the Government. It is a disgrace to humanity and it does not deserve to be sitting in this House. We are going out tomorrow morning to apprehend the Taoiseach. I am not going next to nor near the place. He should be ashamed of himself, going out there in the name of our dead generations and what they did for us. To hell with the people. Stand on them every way possible. Lock them out. Post office masters are being made to sign contracts saying that they cannot speak out. Is the Gestapo operating in Ireland? A man in Germany once carried on in this way and told the people that they could not think or do anything for themselves. We are going in a very dangerous direction in this country. Democracy is being subverted. We have spoken about terrorists. The Government is the real terrorist. Mr. Tony O'Brien is an emotional terrorist, with the bullying and intimidation of the parents of sick children. This Government will go down in history for terrorising the people of the country from whom it got a mandate, and a seal of office from the President so that it would help them. This Government is not helping the people and it does not care about them, but the people are waiting in the long grass with their pinn luaidhe in the ballot box and many egos will fall. This Government deserves no better.

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