Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is fine. I do not mean that literally but the Minister knows well what I am trying to say. It has been extraordinary. I said today when I left the Cabinet room - Deputy Howlin or Deputy Kelly may have been there - that at the first meeting we were called into when this happened, I staggered out of the room in fear because of the predictions from NPHET. Thank God and thanks to our HSE and front-line staff, they did not materialise. Every prediction NPHET has made has been like doomsday and has been proved utterly wrong, false and fake. The one it came up with this week beat all others out. It had a latitude in the middle of the scenarios of a multiple of ten. The worst case scenario was 7,500 cases and the most optimistic scenario was 800. There is a whole ocean in between, the distance from Mizen Head to Malin Head. What is NPHET playing at? It plays it safe, and takes a belt and braces approach. It has the nobblers on the Cabinet, the Taoiseach and the Government. That is good enough for them because they handed control over to NPHET. The former Taoiseach, now Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, and the current Taoiseach handed the reins of power to an unelected cabal. Now there is another cabal behind them, namely, the national immunisation advisory committee, NIAC. They will probably think of another one when they try to cover their tracks and give it another acronym.

This legislation is needed. I have saluted and supported An Garda Síochána all my life but they have been put in an invidious position. The county councils were given grants. My daughter, who is a councillor, and many others helped businesses to get grants to take away parking spaces and provide outdoor eating spaces. The Garda was told to give a wink and a nod. I thought those days were gone. There was no legislation so members of the Government are fumbling, mumbling, stumbling and meandering from crisis to crisis. They do not have a clue what they are at. It is a shame; we are supposed to be legislators. We are legislating this evening after the fact, trying to close the door when the horse has bolted, gone around the racecourse five times and is ready to go off the race and maybe jump a few hurdles.

Members of the Government are jumping to whatever height NPHET tells them. Then they are asking to go higher and raise the bar. To make this legislation better, they throw in the middle of it a provision to increase the number of judges from 37 to 43. We are told they are ordinary judges. I do not know who the extraordinary judges are. I thought that in our democracy most of them were meant to be ordinary, and of and by the people.

It is scandalous that the Government would include in this legislation the appointment of extra judges in the middle of what I have called a "plandemic" since last April 12 months. No doubt, they will be thoroughly vetted and have good Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael genes. I am sure the Green Party will have a judge, too. I mean no disrespect to any of them and I hope they do a good job but, as we know, justice is not being served well by some judges. We saw the charade after "golfgate". I wish Mr. Justice Woulfe well. He was finally let in, but the others did not want him for so long it was as if they had said, "We are all in this together but we do not want you." Now he is sitting with them, though. I do not know how justice was being served by the stand-off with the others.

Do we have a complaints procedure now? As of tomorrow, 1 July, can we make a complaint about a judge? The procedure has been delayed and prevaricated about for nearly two years since the legislation was introduced by the then Minister, Mr. Shane Ross, and passed. Will we be able to make a complaint tomorrow if we feel there has been a miscarriage of justice? Obviously, it would have to be proved. Will that procedure finally be open or will the Government find some other cloak and dagger way of stifling it, and then to hell with it?

Justice is not being well served. I spoke to a constituent of the Minister's last week whose son had been mown down by a criminal with several convictions, carried 200 yd on his bicycle and killed. He was Shane in Monaghan. The Minister knows who that is. It will shortly be ten years since his death, but there has been no justice for his family. There has been no justice following the Omagh bombing, which happened beside the Minister's constituency. I worked with-----

See this speech in context