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

Honestly, only that I can see the Ceann Comhairle and other Deputies around the place I would have thought that I was in Russia or some other dictatorship with what is going on here and what is being proposed in this Bill. I say to Deputy Bruton that he is a wizard. After six months or more with rural pubs being closed, now he is suggesting that it is the publicans who should bring forward the rules and ideas so they can open their pubs. At the same time, he is backing legislation here to penalise pubs whenever they do open. This is what we are doing. It is absolutely ridiculous. We are shoving this down the throats of people in rural Ireland. At the same time, day by day, it seems to me that 50% of the cases of coronavirus are emanating from Dublin or the greater Dublin area. Two thirds of the pubs are open here in Dublin. Two thirds of them are still closed down in Kerry and along the west coast. These people have done nothing wrong.

We are suggesting that uniformed or plain-clothes gardaí can enter a premises. It does not say whether it is a private house out in the country where people are terrified. What the Government is suggesting is that when a knock comes at the door and someone says they are a member of the Garda, and the people peep around the corner and see a fellow in plain clothes, they are supposed to let him in as the Garda has powers to come in now. When they let him in, they could find themselves corralled into a corner and the few pennies they have, wherever they are, taken from them under threat. This is opening the door for robbery and mayhem in rural Ireland. We do not even have the rules for the penalties being proposed. We do not actually know what the penalties are either but we want to give powers to the Garda.

The Garda is under pressure. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae has asked where the extra funding is going to come from. We do not have funding at present to pay for a few minutes more of extra home help for people who want to stay in their houses for the remainder of their days on this earth after serving their country, families and communities well. We cannot provide a few extra minutes. We cannot pay the farmers who have built buildings to regulation. They have got planning permission and dealt with 14 or 18 serious rules so that they can build buildings to prevent pollution and adhere to good practice on their farms. How many of these people have been paid the grants due to them since 2019 or 2020? We are becoming like the dictatorships in Russia and other places around the world.

I heard Deputy Michael Collins raising a matter I have been made aware of as well. Fishermen are going to get penalty points for breaches of regulations without recourse to any judge or law. It is only just someone coming on board their fishing boat and giving them penalty points. They have no right or recourse to challenge these penalty points anywhere only take them and reduce the value of their asset. That is a long story but it is what is going on in this country now.

I will return to the idea that publicans must now at this stage come forward and give ideas to the Government as to how they may be allowed to open their pubs.

It is absolutely scandalous and shameless from a long-standing Member like Deputy Bruton that he would make such a suggestion at this stage. It is sticking publicans' noses further into the ground after they have been closed for six months. Does the Deputy know many publicans cannot pay college fees for family members or loans they have taken out? They are facing an end to the mortgage moratorium later this month. They do not know what way they will turn and we are legislating to bring them down further.

What is going on here is absolutely ridiculous. I support Deputy Howlin's amendment. It is what we should do because the private home of an ordinary person is his or her castle and it should remain so. We must not give uninformed but uniformed people the right to knock on the door and seek to enter. That is totally wrong and I will not accept it at all.

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