Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This is definitely the highest blackguarding that I have ever seen in my life. I will remind the Minister of State what a man sitting in the seat alongside him said on the record of the Dáil, and I hate talking about somebody when he is not here but that was the former Minister, Phil Hogan. I made an impassioned plea on behalf of our town councils and our town councillors of all political persuasions. I did not care what politics they were, whether they were Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin or whatever, because as far as I was concerned they were respectable people elected locally and they were doing a great job. When I put it to the then Minister and said that I was making a plea on these people's behalf not to abolish the town council in Killarney, Listowel, Tralee and places such as that around the country, he told me that I could go back and tell them: "I am quaking in my boots." I quote him word for word. I would not dare-----

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