Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am disappointed that the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, is not here. I listened to the debate on “Saturday with Katie Hannon” last Saturday.

I heard the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, whom I greatly respect, speak on behalf of the Government and there were also people from the aviation industry. I heard Michael O'Leary in a phone call to the programme. Like him or lump him, he talks great sense. He just said that, unfortunately, the Minister has no plan, no roadmap and is disinterested. He is more concerned with pushing and forcing through his utopian green agenda. We saw that last night.

I wish no disrespect to the Minister of State, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton. I want to ask her about the wonderful Aer Lingus pilots we met outside week after week. I salute the pilots and staff of Ryanair, Stobart Air and iarSheanadóir Pádraig Ó Céidigh, who started the airline. Our country is being ravaged. We were meant to be ravaged by a plague but now we are being ravaged by Dr. Holohan and his cabal, and the Government is standing idly by. Those in government are like bystanders – shamefully innocent bystanders. One would think they were asleep. They are in some kind of a trance.

One person is too many to be sick in hospital but we had 67 patients in hospital on Monday, supposedly with Covid, 23 of whom were in ICU. I wish them all a happy recovery. I remember being at the first meetings in Government Buildings and we were all shocked and frightened when we were told about the doomsday situation. I salute everybody who worked on it. I sympathise with anyone who lost their life or got seriously ill, but now we must get real. What kind of a grip do these people have? Some of them are narcissists. They have terrorised the people for long enough and now they want to browbeat them to hell or to Connacht.

We had a lovely airport in Knock and now that will be destroyed. Shannon has been neglected for decades and Dublin has been confused. More money has been bulldozed into it. Everything is about Dublin. Could we blame people for being conspiracy theorists when they see what is going on? Educated people are looking on and they see NPHET running the country. Now, the Climate Change Advisory Council is going to make decisions, advise the Minister on decisions and bypass this House. Why are we paying €27,000 a day for this building or maintaining Dáil Éireann that the people of 1916 and the period 1921-1923 fought for, who devised the first Constitution, when it is being trodden on? What is going on here?

We are so proud of our green Aer Lingus aeroplanes and the company's gallant staff. I listened to many of them on air with Deputy McNamara and others here on Zoom calls literally telling us that they moved from Dublin back to the country. They have been living there for 20 years but they are now being forced back to hell or to go anywhere they like. We have a Minister for Transport who is not interested in their jobs. He is not interested in the economy recovering. The IMF is saying that it will cost €20 billion per annum to pay for what we put through last night, which was forced through without debate. Where are we going to get the money to help the aviation industry and all the associated industries recover? God be good to Pat The Cope Gallagher, the former Leas-Cheann Comhairle. He is alive and well and kicking. He always used, and boasted about, the aeroplanes to Donegal and the connectivity with Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Knock and anyplace else. Those people are entitled to that modicum of service but, above all, we are entitled to have the economy recover. There is no sign of it recovering because insurance companies are not paying out to anybody, the banks are not loaning any money and we have all the cabals with regulators and everybody else who are just letting things drift along.

Nobody is forced to be accountable. We need an international investigation into the handling of Covid in Ireland, not another cloak-and-dagger session here now. We need independent people from abroad to come in. That is what it takes. We must have it, but I do not know how we are going to get it. We must have it to get honesty, answers and information on how people were mistreated and how all the people were literally slaughtered in nursing homes and hospitals where they picked up Covid. It is a shocking indictment. It is still going on 15 months later and there is no sign of the restrictions being lifted or changed. We need accountability. I do not know how we are going to get it, but we need nothing short of an international investigation on the handling of it. Medical people have phoned me demanding that because of what is going on and the intimidation of anyone that speaks out or asks a question. It is said they are all conspiracy theorists and they are not wearing the green jersey. The Minister for Transport is not wearing the green jersey. The Taoiseach, Tánaiste and the Cabinet are not wearing the green jersey. Neither is the Minister of State. She is not wearing the green jersey. Let our people live. Open up the country and let us do what we are best at doing: entertaining people who come to visit us and go to places like Kerry and west Cork. The runway at Cork Airport will be repaired now but they could not do it when Covid was there.

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