Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Some Government Deputies wrongly accused Deputy Shortall of not supporting the Garda, so in case they try to do the same again, I want to put on the record that I support the Garda 100%. We have an excellent community division in Tipperary. It was stood down but is back up running now. I support Sergeant Ray Moloney, Superintendent Denis Whelan and all the inspectors in Cahir and thank them for the work they have done. They have re-engaged since yesterday morning to go out to visit elderly and vulnerable people. I support them 100% and will not let anyone construe from my contribution anything different.

The testing and tracing system is a shambles. If we wanted confirmation of that, we had it a while ago.

I agree totally with Deputy O'Donoghue about breaking news. The media should be curtailed because they have people frightened for their lives. There is breaking news morning, noon, night, midnight, an hour after and again at 5 a.m. They have our hearts broken with it. Tá na daoine amuigh sa tír briste. They are frightened, scared, worried and confused.

The Minister told me yesterday that my contribution was not worthy of him speaking to it. Since he came into office, he has been an utter failure. I thought the previous Minister was bad and that the situation could not get any worse but the two of them come from the same village in the leafy suburbs of Wicklow, up in Greystones where one could pay €3 million for a house. They do not have a clue what is going on. The Minister is presiding over this shambolic health system.

Deputy O'Donoghue referred to the €3.8 billion for the HSE. Since I came into the Dáil in 2007, every year we have incrementally given €1 billion extra to the HSE and we have got less and less for it and worse and worse outcomes. It is a disastrous and incapable system. People need hope. I could go into lists of people who are waiting and talk about PCR tests and so on. The Minister will not engage with any of the scientists and specialists who know much more than I do or will ever learn. He says they are all conspiracy theorists and are all wrong. He is just steaming ahead with the PCR tests which cost €195 each. Some people are making an outrageous amount of money off that but money does not matter in the HSE. It pumped €2.1 million into a closed psychiatric hospital in Clonmel where we badly need mental health beds but do not have any. There has not been a word about accountability for it. For the Covid crisis, money is like confetti. It is like the fertiliser spreaders helicopters use in forests, which just throw it down.

The Government thinks money is like manna from heaven but most members of the Government do not believe in heaven and will not allow people to go to mass. I thank Deputy McNamara for bringing this issue up. When he did so, the Minister retorted that people could go to mass and that priests were not being punished, but priests will be punished under the legislation unless they say the mass online. The churches are dúnta. It is a sad country where Mary, Johnny, Tom or Biddy cannot go in and say a prayer. I cannot go to mass and people on their death beds in hospitals cannot get the last rites. It is shocking. The Minister had the audacity to challenge Deputy McNamara but the Deputy was quick enough to get the regulations and quote the exact sections to the Minister because he has a legal brain. Fair dues to him. I compliment him on his work.

The marts are closed. People have it so bad at this time of year. The Ceann Comhairle will understand as he is a farmer and brings a few cattle to the mart occasionally. People have to sell their cattle at this time of year to pay their bills. Some people do not have the technology to do it online in the first place and that technology is a disaster in most places in rural Ireland anyway. Many sites collapse when the marts cannot work. The Minister must deal with that as well.

This morning, Deputy Kelly said this Bill was simply crazy, appalling and downright disgraceful. Why, then, is he voting for this legislation? I cannot understand that. We are expected to come in to the Dáil to scrutinise legislation but we have had no scrutiny. We got 48 hours' notice of this Bill and Deputies are condemning it but also voting for it. What is wrong with these people? We are voting again today to give the Minister the power to dream up whatever statutory instruments he wants in his leafy suburb and comfortable bed out in Greystones, with the sea water going around in the air like a vapour giving him clean thinking. Yesterday, he brought up 25 reasons in these regulations that allow people to leave their houses. He says we should lock people up and that they are breaking the law if they leave their houses. He is also saying he can bring in any statutory instrument he likes without any recourse to this House and without any scrutiny, debate or vote. We are wasting our time here. We should stay at home and save the taxpayers the cost of being here because we have no say in this Government. It is imposing a tyranny on the people. I cannot believe the Opposition parties, which I respect individually, are buying this pig in a poke blindfolded. They are giving out about it with their cronies and so on but they are going to vote for it. I am certainly not going to put my name to any vote to terrorise and put a tyrannical rule on our people, young and old, from the cradle to the grave.

I condemn the people who were misbehaving on Grafton Street yesterday. I support the Garda but we saw that it has the necessary powers already so we do not need to be here debating this. The Minister must respect the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, AGSI, and Sergeant Antoinette Cunningham, who has said she is concerned about these powers. There are more rules and regulations now and gardaí are on 12-hour rosters. I thank them for working so hard. They have to give the whole day to reading the regulations and are trying to clock out when they are finished. It is a cop, a con and a codology job.

The Departments are so secure in their ways and claim they know it all. They say not to mind Deputies Mattie McGrath, Fitzmaurice, McNamara, Pringle or any of us. Deputy Connolly said yesterday that the Government thinks it knows best and knows it all. It cannot bring the people with it that way. As I said yesterday, Dan Breen, Seán Treacy, Seán Hogan and many more ended the tyranny in the Twenty-six Counties in Ireland. My late father spent 14 months in prison as well as being out in that war with that great patriot Liam Ó Loingsigh. Those people gave their lives and now the Government wants to take life from people.

There has not been a word about the suicide deaths, cancer deaths, the scandal of the cervical cancer smear tests or the many other scandals that are brewing in the hospital system because of the inept, inadequate, ham-fisted and draconian HSE that is not fit for purpose. Two former taoisigh, Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen, told me they were going to disband the HSE. I doubt if Mickey Martin - the Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin - will disband it because he is good at setting up quangos and it is the biggest, most dangerous, most irresponsible and tyrannical quango in this country or any part of the world.

The only three countries in which people cannot go to mass or church are North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and mother Ireland. Mother Ireland is dead and gone, it is with O'Leary in the grave. God help us.

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