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

The lost Labour Party, which is walking in the political wilderness and whose members are just trying to make themselves relevant in today's political landscape by bringing forward this motion because they are on the sidelines and are wandering aimlessly, has no understanding whatsoever. For a once-great party that had great people in it, its members today are trying to scramble to make themselves relevant.

They do not represent the workers who are coming to us and asking how could this motion make any sense in terms of helping them. How could what they are proposing help small businesses in small towns and villages or bigger population centres where these business people are struggling? They really are suffering.

What the Labour Party is proposing to do here today includes a couple of issues where it is only saying what we were saying for more than ten months with regard to travel into the country. It was common sense but, unfortunately, the Government ignored our calls and pleas at the time. Labour does not understand work. It does not understand business. It does not understand what it is to try to keep a door open, whether one is a hairdresser, a small butcher or a person in the service industry. Its members do not have a clue. All they are trying to do here today, as I say, is make themselves relevant in a debate they know nothing about.

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