Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

First of all, I thank Sinn Féin very much for bringing forward this very important motion.

If you were ever to stand back and watch a kamikaze Government engaged in kamikaze-style activities, this is one of them. If you had a death wish, you would not be doing more than what it is proposing to do here. It has already been stated over and over again that if a system or something is not broken, why in the name of God would you want to go at it to fix it?

I am proud of the work that is being done in County Kerry in the schemes there and in the way they have worked, organised their work and the way the walk-ins have been facilitated. Walk-ins are a very important aspect of the employment opportunities that have been given to people over the years and I will explain why that is the case. I am sorry and very surprised that nobody in Government seems to understand it. It suits the people who work on schemes very well in many cases. They are very talented in certain ways and the people who are organising the work can get the most out of those people because they can put them into situations that suit their own particular fields of expertise. In every part of the county that I know, come from and represent in Kerry, we have people who are greatly talented in varying and different ways, and the schemes and the way they were organised suited them.

This privatisation of the jobs activation services will be greatly detrimental to the excellent model that is there. I will be very interested tomorrow night to see who will vote for the Sinn Féin motion, but more importantly I will be acutely watching who will be voting with the Government in this. Any person who calls him or herself a public representative, a Teachta Dála, a messenger of the people, and who will come up here tomorrow night and vote against this motion, I will tell the House what they can be doing when they go back to their constituencies and I am laying it very clearly on the line to them. They can explain to the people who voted them in and sent them up here why they thought this motion was wrong, why they thought it was unfounded, and only they can explain how they would go against the very people who sent them here in the first instance.

This is really getting to the heart and soul of the nub of the issue of a Government being completely out of touch with reality. I ask the Minister again to please publish any advice obtained from the Attorney General in respect of the need to comply with these EU procurement rules because she has failed to do so so far. Sinn Féin would not be bringing forward this motion and would not have to if the Minister brought forward written advice and said this is why we are doing this. She cannot and I do not see why she is not doing it.

Again this is a kamikaze Government engaging in something that will have what I would call disastrous consequences for it. We will account for ourselves here tomorrow night but how the Government will face the people after doing this, I do not know. It is beyond me and I do not understand it.

See this speech in context