Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I say first to Deputy O’Donnell that I have the height of respect for him. He was here and he did speak for his 11 minutes but there are many other Deputies who are not turning up. We cannot possibly follow through like this when one is part of a smaller group.

This is not going to work. There are too many glitches and bad marks in this. The testing is a fiasco. I have emails every other day of people who want a test, cannot get a test and who had a test and are waiting two weeks. One woman I spoke to waited 41 days for a test. It is just not working. The tracing collapsed, as we know, at the weekend. It was not working in any event. A hotel owner contacted me where someone had tested positive. She was told that if she was to act properly she should close. She could get not get an answer from the HSE and was then told to forget about it as it was only a 48-hour test. The whole thing is a shambles.

I oppose this renewed legislation as it gives the Minister the power to do literally anything he likes. It is like signing a blank cheque up to June 2021. Everyone bought into this initially. The public, young and old from the cradle to the grave bought into this the first time, but we see the Government misbehaving, however, we see the shambles in the testing, we see the fake numbers and the fake news, we see the Minister and what is after happening in one unfortunate nursing home - I do not want to add any more misery - and we are told that it is costing €12.5 million to keep the nursing homes tested, which we must do. Why is the Government sticking to the polymerase chain reaction, PCR, test when it has been proven all over the world not be accurate? Deputy Kelly and many others have brought forward other tests and the results of these can be available within an hour. Deputy Collins brought people to Belfast for eye treatment last week and brought a doctor down from Belfast to his constituency office and had 20 people tested. They all had their results within an hour. What kind of incompetence is within the HSE and in the Minister’s Department that they cannot get the testing or tracing right?

People have lost faith and the Government has lost the battle. We were told that everybody was in this together. Ní neart go cur le chéile. The rich are getting richer. The banks and the vulture funds are still doing what they like. Evictions and court cases have being ongoing and are terrorising families all through the first time as well as now. A double act is going on here. Big companies and conglomerates are getting richer and richer. The World Health Organization and Dr. David Nabarro, envoy to the United Nations, has stated that lockdowns have not worked and that they are regressive on the poorer and less well-off people and do damage to mental health and so on. The World Health Organization also said that the 2 m distancing was not necessary but the Government insisted upon it here in Ireland. This Government wants to persecute and destroy the energy, enthusiasm, the passion, the very vigour and vim of the Irish people. It will not succeed. The people here 100 years ago fought for their freedom and they now have to go out to fight a tyranny that this Government wants to introduce.

I want to salute An Garda Síochána in Tipperary, Dublin and all over the country. It is doing its best. It does not know what regulations it is operating because these are changing so any times. If we pass this legislation, which I and my Independent group will vote against, the Government will have the power to bring in whatever instrument it likes. This would not happen under Hitler. It is scandalous what is going on. We are supposed to be a democracy. Where are the Members in this big place that we are paying €25,000 a day for in order to come in to speak? Where are they? Have they gone under a stone? Are they hiding? The elected representatives of the people should be representing the people who are terrorised and very cross and angry and getting crosser. The churches are closed. Only two other countries in the world, North Korea and Saudi Arabia, have closed their churches for worship. This is a shocking tyranny and is a terrible treatment of the people. Come back Seán Tracey and Dan Breen and the magnificent men of Tipperary who fired the first shots in the War of Independence. We need leaders like that now again.

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