Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support the Bill wholeheartedly. I have already sympathised today with those affected by the tragic accident in Donegal, which is so sad. There are many tragedies on a daily basis as a result of the carry-on of the Minister's Government and successive Governments in allowing the banks to run this country and to control it. There is a meeting in the post office on Clogheen tonight, which I should be at. The post office is being closed thanks to the Minister. Most of us here unanimously agreed we should support the post offices for 12 months and put some capital into them to allow the introduction of the community models we looked at in Denmark and Germany with the profits going back into the community.

However, the Minister vetoed it. He cannot look at me now. He vetoed it because the Government is 101% in hock to the banks. The former Minister, Deputy Noonan, said that we needed the vultures and that they were very good and necessary. One would know he was never a farmer and saw the way vultures deal with dying sheep and lambs just after they are born, taking the eyes out of their heads. That is what they are. He mentioned the carcasses as well.

The Taoiseach has said the vulture funds are more effective than the banks. It is easily known he never had a mortgage, business loan or a family threatened with being thrown out. The way the Government is treating the people is disgraceful. The contempt it has for the public is beyond belief. It will not support any Bill to put manners on the banks. Thankfully, the Government will lose this vote again owing to a sea change from Fianna Fáil. I understand today it was due to vote with the Government, but the confidence and supply agreement must have got a bit of a shudder. The pipe must be rusting somewhere again. They are afraid of the people, and why would they not be?

As with other Deputies, I have met families who are trying to deal with the banks and trying to do their best. I am not here to speak for the "won't pay, can't pay, don't want to pay" people. I do not represent them. I am talking about ordinary people who took out loans in good faith and are trying to deal with the banks. They sell on the loan for 20% or 30%. They will not offer it to those people instead. Deputy Fitzmaurice and I tabled amendments to the Finance Bill proposing that the Government should make up the balance in taxation for what the vultures get it for, but the Minister refused. I would be ashamed if I were the Minister for Finance who allowed the vulture funds to do what they are doing to the citizens of the country. A week after we celebrated the centenary of the First Dáil, I would be ashamed to be the Minister for Finance.

The Master of the High Court, Edmund Honohan, was helping people. He spent countless hours and days preparing legislation to be brought to the House. He has been fair. He has not been unreasonable to the banks, he has been fair with people, and he has been admonished and removed from the system by the powers that be at the Government's request because he is appointed by the Government and not by the courts, Mr. Justice Kelly or anybody else. He is appointed by the Government. The Minister knows that but he wants no message of support for ordinary people. The Government is in hock to the banks. Its legacy is a disgrace and will be a disgrace. We can see what has happened with the children's hospital and everything else. The Minister is just self-serving.

I voted for the bank guarantee, the single biggest mistake I made in my life and I have made many of them. I will regret that to the day I die. What have they done to us? The Minister will see how his friends in Europe treat us in the next six weeks when Mrs. May gets tough. We will see if Europe cuts us adrift like it did with the bailout when it charged us 6% for the money even though we got it from the IMF for 3%.

What the Minister is doing is a thundering disgrace and he should be ashamed of himself. There is not a single solitary soul on the other side of the House and it is sad that there is not a Labour Party Member in the House.

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