Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not know what kind of a death wish the Minister of State and the Government have on rural Ireland especially. During a Zoom meeting last Friday I listened to the heartfelt pleas of wonderful and long-serving staff from Shannon Airport. It was heartfelt fear at the sheer abandonment of the airlines by the Government and both Ministers responsible. This is at a time we should be trying to expand them. We have two wonderful airlines in Aer Lingus and Ryanair, with wonderful staff. We know what they do. It is time to look after them. Get the mayhem out of Dublin Airport and support Shannon, Knock and Cork airports. Give them some decent modicum of responsibility.

On the pandemic and the Government's response to it, I have said before that it is a plandemic, which is what it seems to be. They just want to turn off the tap on rural Ireland and cast people's lives away. There were Deputies in here, from the left parties in general, who were crying for zero Covid, including the Labour Party. Now they want to complain about the results of it. Thank God we did not go there. It has been a whole mishmash of dysfunction and being disloyal to our people while being subservient to somebody else.

On the green certificates, why was the European Commission debating the green passports in 2017, 2018 and 2019, before we ever had Covid? What is going on? I would advise people in this House to be careful what they wish for. We will all be locked up and not able to go anywhere. Big Brother will be watching us. I believe this is the Government's plan: to control, control, control, and to hell or to Connacht with the people. Certainly, anything outside of Dublin is to hell, to Connacht, to Africa or to any place else they want to go. The way the Government is blackguarding the people is shameful. RTÉ was putting fear into people last Thursday telling us that the extensions to emergency powers were being decided and being done without ever coming to this House. RTÉ and other journalists should get their facts right because we must debate that in this House this week.

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