Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted that the Minister of State is here. The Ceann Comhairle might allow me to digress slightly on another issue. Gabhaim buíochas don iar-Sheanadóir, Brian Ó Domhnaill, agus Mairead McGrath agus Valerie Ward in our office and our support team for bringing this comprehensive motion forward. I make no apologies for it. They did that with our input and oversight but we take responsibility for what is in the motion. I will take no lecture from the Labour Party or the Social Democrats about our motion. I thank Deputy Connolly for her wise words and for being so mild, accurate and praiseworthy. We are entitled to bring this motion forward and to deal with it in our own time. Others have plenty of time to bring motions forward too. The Labour Party has an obsession. The former Minister, Deputy Kelly, AK-47, thinks he is still Minister or Taoiseach or Robocop.

He was lecturing us all about masks and then he goes out on those loose without one. He is some man to lecture; Deputy Duncan Smith too. The Labour Party cut the widow's pension and the women's pensions and they were never forgiven for it. I think their anger and anxiety is about the 3% the Labour Party is languishing on in the polls under Deputy Kelly. I will say no more. We have our rights. I thank the Ceann Comhairle for protecting our rights here, always.

I praise An Garda Síochána and the front line services - not slapping them on the back - and the community groups which have risen up and done so much. The community gardaí in my area of Cahir and Clonmel, Sergeant Ray Moloney and Sergeant Kieran O'Regan and all the community responded the first and second times and are doing now it again, and they will do it next year when they have to, and they always do.

The HSE and the Department of Health are dysfunctional at best, are ignorant of the views of politicians and do not want to know. Micheál Martin can lap it up because he set them up and has failed to disband them since. They are totally out of control, and they have no respect whatever for politicians as we saw during the week in Carrick on Suir. He can wax in it.

The whole situation has been handled idiotically and illogically from start to finish in my county from Sceichín an Rince down to Carrick-on-Suir and up to Roscrea. The HSE and the Department of Health are doing things in the middle of the pandemic that they wanted to do for a long time, namely, disband and close all the rural small hospitals. All our Deputies, and I thank them for their contribution and support, mentioned what has been happening in their constituencies. We are under sustained attack.

I wish the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and her husband well on a personal level. I did not realise until yesterday that he has not been well. I would not want to say anything that would hurt or offend them. However, our service in St. Brigid's District Hospital in Carrick-on-Suir has been taken away. The Minister of State went on the radio, talking like Maggie Thatcher - it is out, out, out; finished; gone. We had that before from people and where are they now? The Dean Maxwell home in Roscrea at the other end of the county has been attacked. I attended a meeting yesterday with senior HSE officials who were rude and disrespectful to public representatives. They just said this was happening and would be closed as a long-stay facility.

I support Councillor Michael Smith from Tipperary County Council and ask the Minister of State and the Minister for Health to meet with him and Councillors Kieran Bourke, Dinny Dunne and Eddie Reid, Catherine and all the nursing staff and doctors associated with that wonderful institution of St. Brigid's in Carrick on Suir. It has to remain open. The Government cannot blame Covid, Chernobyl or any issue like that that suits to put a cloud over things and remove a service that has served so many people in the Minster of State's county as well as mine. I ask for a commitment that she will meet those people and listen to them.

Illogical things are going on. There are farm inspections being carried out. Hill sheep farmers are expected to round up sheep whether they have 500, 5,000 or 15,000. When we want to get information from the Departments, it is so slow. I support the staff in social welfare and all the Departments trying to help, but if a person wants anything on the schemes, it is very slow, especially when staff in Departments are working from home, yet people are going on farms for inspections. I have said that they should use technology like drones. What we need is support for the farmers and the communities.

Teachers are in schools with classes of 30. I have an email from a teacher whose son is a type 2 diabetic. She says he has had flu three times in the past month, with open windows in schools. We are forcing the schools to stay open. What happened to the teacher in Claremorris is nothing short of intimidation. What happened to the police in Cavan was nothing short of intimidation. The Gardaí have to do their job, yes, but there are ways and means of doing it. Honey is better than vinegar. They need to talk to people - ní neart go cur le chéile - and bring them with them. That is why the Government has failed spectacularly. That is why we are calling for the things in this motion. Money is being thrown at problems but is not reaching the right people.

My figures on mental health were questioned. I thank Brian Ó Domhnaill who did the research. The Department of Health allocation for mental health in recent years ranged from 5.7% to 6.3% while in 2019 it was 6.3%. It will fall dramatically to 5.2% in 2021. Those are the Department's figures, if Deputy Duncan Smith wants to know or if anyone else questions it. The Minister of State has responsibility for mental health. We know the crisis that already exists there. To go back to Tipperary, St. Michael's need beds. On three fronts, the Department is attacking us in Tipperary. Tipperary people are a proud people, as I have said before. They will rise up in the spirit of Kickham, Dan Breen, Sean Treacy and, indeed, our footballer that died in Croke Park on Bloody Sunday, Michael Hogan. We will do that. We will not take this kicking around from the HSE and unelected, unaccountable mandarins.

I have long said there is evidence that the PCR tests are not accurate. Why has the Government such spite against the antigen tests? A publican who is doing his best to keep his pub going and keeping it Covid free with antigen tests had to be arrested. I do not know what is going on. We are creating a climate of fear. It is back to the days of Russia and Communist countries: do not talk to people, do not engage and do not crowd. I do not want anyone to crowd. I want people to respect hygiene and for people to be careful and mind their elderly, but people with Covid were put into the nursing homes and caused its spread. There is still a problem with nursing homes. I salute every nursing home and the gallant efforts they made to keep it out, but the HSE and Department of Health put Covid into the homes. It is The Hague the Government should be brought to for crimes against humanity. That is what should be done with the former Minister, Deputy Harris, and, indeed, the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, and their officials. They put people with Covid in the homes and abandoned them. There are many cases of it.

I have raised many issues here. Thankfully we have worked through some of them, including dancing. Tá na daoine ag rince arís i Tiobraid Árann. We can dance again and we will soon be able to do a reel for the Ceann Comhairle. We have not lost all the talents. The musicians have been vilified and petrified and the funding has not got down to them. The is lots of funding for some who are suave at grant application forms, but the money has not gone down to the ordinary man in the van. They are in Tipperary by the spadeful and I am sure they are in the Minister of State's constituency too. There is Mad Patsy in Carrick-on-Suir - the Minister of State will know him well - Fran and Muriel, Trudy Lawlor, who entertained us on "The Late Late Show" the other night, and Paul Lafford. These are brilliant people who have all been denied the right to work. This motion was our attempt to have a proper debate. We have had no debate on the vaccines. There will be a small bit of a debate this evening. We looked for extra time. Our group will have six minutes.

Our group gave our two hours today to this serious motion on something that has had such a wide impact across a wide range in society. We are looking for a multidisciplinary strategy for an exit. We must keep the businesses going. The publicans have been vilified and destroyed. Small pubs were given the horrible name of wet pubs. I asked Fáilte Ireland about it at the arts committee but it said it did not give them the name. I asked it who came up with the €9 meal and it said it did not. Who is codding who? It is a case of round the kitchen and mind the dresser but we do not get the truth. We have to get the truth.

None of our people in the Rural Independent Group are anti-vaccine. We have huge concerns about the lack of debate and transparency, as we saw yesterday. There is no sign of a scheme to support people who experience side-effects and get ill, as happens with all vaccines. That has not been discussed. Yesterday, the Taoiseach said it had been discussed at Cabinet and there was some report. Why is that not out? Why is it all push, push, push, push? How dare Deputy Kelly take it up himself and do the Ceann Comhairle's job to write to all of us, putting a letter in our pigeonholes, demanding that we sign up to his vaccine policy. I wonder if he has a vested interest in the vaccine policies. He must have something because he gets up here and he talks about nothing only a vaccine. He needs some kind of injection to get off that topic and look after the people of Tipperary. That is what he needs. How dare he? The cheek of him; the arrogance of him. I did not reply to him. I will not be intimidated or bullied by any other Member in the House. It is a democratic country that we live in and we will make up our minds with the advice of our doctors, consultants and specialists. I have underlying issues myself.

We must bring the people with us and we have not done so. We have left them behind. I mentioned the publicans. There are also the people who were denied going to mass and the people denied their rights. I mentioned the schoolchildren who are blown out the window while the Department bullied a teacher to open up again. That teacher and the board of management did a service to the people and decided to close the school because of fear. I am telling the Minister of State that the marches will continue in Carrick-on-Suir, and she should meet the group of Councillors Dunne and Bourke, their teams, the staff, including Dr. John Flanagan, and the people there. She should meet Councillor Michael Smith and the team from the wonderful Dean Maxwell in Tipperary town.

The Government needs to stop this bullying and intimidation through the wiping away of our services by the HSE. It has been caught napping here, being unable to deliver and respond to this pandemic. It cannot respond to the winter flu. The HSE and the Department have lost 500,000 flu vaccines and now they want to administer 8.5 million vaccines. I have no faith in them whatsoever. We have a lot to sort out. We have a lot to get fixed up.

I wish the Minister of State well in her stint in the Department but, by God, this will take movement. They need to listen to the people, and the fact that they are unelected and unaccountable is shocking. We are elected by the people for the time being and I value that and respect the mandate, but these people can come in, and we had to sit and listen to them yesterday evening. Eight senior officials came into that Zoom meeting - I struggled to get on with technology - to tell us it is over and we are not having any more long-stay beds in the Dean Maxwell nursing unit. The Minister of State told us this last week and then went on the radio, to add insult to injury, to say that it is closed, gone, finito, forget it, they are going putting diabetic services into it. There is a monstrosity of a primary health centre in front of it, half-empty, but-----

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