Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, rise to wish a silent lament that former Deputy Pat The Cope Gallagher is not here. He stopped this by way of statutory instruments. The Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, who, when he in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine on an acting basis - having unceremoniously disposed of two of his Ministers - signed it only to reverse his decision. He would do anything to grovel to the Green Party. The Green Party is butchering this. How can we have a situation where the courts of the land can clear people of a charge or of anything and the penalty points will still remain? Has the Government learned nothing from the closure and loss of our sugar industry?

I am not a fishing person at all but I support my colleagues. I compliment Deputies Michael and Danny Healy-Rae and Michael Collins, who have been tirelessly representing the fishermen here. To think that the Minister did not notify them that he was going down to west Cork. The Minister was in Cahir as well and called to the mart in my hometown, but he did not even notify his colleague, Deputy Cahill. He brought a Fine Gael Senator with him. I do not know if the Minister knew the fish from the cattle or what he was doing because the press release about Castletownbere went out even before he arrived.

How patronising and insulting, and how awful for families who are being forced out of business and being expected to take compensation. It is an awful way to treat people - just give them money and get rid of this industry. We got rid of the bees. We are getting rid of our peat. There is no room for ordinary people. The plain people of Ireland cannot work, heat their houses or fish for themselves or for their livelihoods. It is to hell or to Connacht, like Cromwell had it when he came into Tipperary all those years ago. It is to hell with rural Ireland now for Fianna Fáil. I cannot believe it.

When former Deputy Mary Coughlan was Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, she involved every public representative when she visited places. She wrote a letter and said let them come if they can come. What is happening now is cloak-and-dagger stuff. I know the Minister is hiding from the people of County Donegal. He is spending a lot of time all over the country because he cannot face his own people but he is going to have to face them. They are waiting for him in the long grass. He will have to face them in the next election. Hopefully, the former Deputy, Minister, Leas-Cheann Comhairle and MEP, Pat The Cope Gallagher, will return and represent the people of County Donegal and the fishermen. He will represent the people of Donegal across the board and he will not be abandoning them like the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, is and selling his soul for 60 shillings.

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