Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

They can make it about me. I am saying I want the answers. Deputy Murphy said on the record that I did not want the answers. Of course I want the answers. I am pleading with the Minister. I asked the Acting Chairman and he told me he would be on the list and that if I wanted I could give him some of my time. I will do it any time if he would answer any question. In all the debates we have had here he has not answered one single question. Of course I want him to answer the questions. If people want to suggest I have some other ulterior motive it is downright insulting.

I am representing the people of Tipperary and the figures I gave are for the waiting list in Tipperary, and only in Tipperary, my own county. The RSA recruited 23 and put only six of them to gainful employment and it announced this week it will have another 150 if the Bill passes. Why can they not be put in place first to show empathy and bring down those lists and allow the people get to work?

A man came into my office recently who had been working in Australia. Many of our people went out to work in Australia and played a huge part in the construction industry there. He wants to come back and to set up a business here. He must do a theory test, a driver test and lessons here, even though he drove here for about ten years before he went to Australia.

He went out there at 25, 26 or 27. He has driven all kinds of cars out there on road and off road in the Outback and every place else. We are encouraging them to come back. The Health Service Executive, HSE, is out there in countries like that trying to get nurses back to South Tipperary General Hospital in Clonmel. If their licence has lapsed, they then face the insult of going through a theory test again. Is that fair?

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