Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Has the Taoiseach any bit of shame or self-respect at all? He told us many times he would not have green passports. The illogical, alarming, Dickensian and apartheid decision to have vaccinated people go one place and others left outside is shocking. He is operating to an agenda that is clear for everyone to see. It is not an agenda for the Irish people, but for somebody else. If NPHET told him to jump to the sky, the Taoiseach would jump. When will we have an independent inquiry from abroad into the way NPHET handled this? The Taoiseach has just acted at its behest.

Why is the Government victimising the churches again? Nowhere in the statement yesterday or the paperwork does it say communions and confirmations cannot go ahead. Yet, Leaky the Tánaiste has said they cannot. This involves bishops and priests and good people, including Fr. Michael Twomey in my native Newcastle. Hopefully, Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan has said he will go ahead. It does not say it in the writing anywhere. Will the Government deny these young children, men and women their right to have confirmations again? They are planned in many areas and have been put back three or four times. The way the Government has treated religious people in this country is shocking. We listened for 60 years to calls for church and State to be segregated. Now the Government is controlling it.

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