Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am, but I have to reply because the Minister explicitly replied to all the amendments and all of our statements. He accused me, wrongly, of not supporting any of the public health measures. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle knows this. She is on record here countless times saying that we all supported the measures. However, when the runaway train forgot to stop and when the doors of the carriages were locked, nobody could get on. There was demonisation of people who, for whatever reason, medical or otherwise, could not take vaccines. There has been demonisation and the stigmatisation of people regarding masks and everything else. Then there are the narratives in the media. It is not a good place for a modern democracy to be in; it is a bad place. Untold damage is being done. Families are being divided. Communities are being divided. It is shameful. The power of the media and the money behind it are quite shocking also.

The Minister made an alarming statement that we should roll over any statutory instruments or any pieces of legislation. We cannot. We saw the vote tonight. I was one of the tellers for it. I was proud that the vote was called last Friday evening. The vote was defeated by double figures, because the Government has the cobbled together majority of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party, as well as Government Independents who are more Fine Gael than Fine Gael themselves. They are supporting all of the legislation, no matter what it is. They tell people when they ring up “That is not in the legislation at all. Mattie McGrath is only imagining it.” I got this information from eminent lawyers from Lawyers for Justice Ireland who researched the Bill when we did not get proper details about it and the Minister failed to provide information on it to us.

I will take no lectures from the Minister. I will be as robust in debate as anybody else. I am waiting with bated breath to find out what was spent in 2020. Where is the endgame? Where is the endgame? The concept of flattening the curve was for two weeks in the first instance. The Minister has put many different acronyms on the restrictions, but we are going on and on and on. The demonising of people and the stigmatising of people that is going on is shocking. Fear is being driven into people.

I am glad that the Minister clarified for Deputy McNamara the matter relating to the autistic child. We have all received those heart-rending emails and phone calls to our offices about deaf people, those with hearing impairments and those with different speech and language defects and problems.

There are people with learning disabilities, or learning difficulties - I do not want to be accused of using the wrong language - and ordinary people who have a plethora of problems, and teachers are trying to teach them in the classroom. There is the whole area of ventilation and what the Minister was going to do for the schools but none of that has materialised. We are now turning to the children. We were told so many times that schools were the safest place someone could be but that has suddenly changed. There are mixed messages coming from the Government and the media.

My group and I will not be withdrawing our amendment and we will not be giving the Minister a blank check. He got one to the tune of €3.884 billion, on top of the €19 billion of current annual spending. God knows, I am sure it will be €6 billion for the full year, or at least €4.5 billion or €5 billion. That spending went on unchecked and unfettered and was not accountable to this House.

The Minister spoke about all the parliamentary questions he answered and all the Topical Issue debates that were had. I have very seldom seen him here for a Topical Issue debate. It is always Ministers of State. I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing those debates but we cannot elicit the answers. My duty is to get answers from Ministers and to represent the people. Does the Minister want the whole House to go? Does he want to steamroll everybody and crush them into the ground like we did at first? That was because we were in fear and we had to accept the science. We could not question it because it was too serious a situation.

We are paid to scrutinise legislation and understand the impact it will have. There has been no regulatory impact analysis of any of the measures the Minister brought in but it has had an impact on mental health, cancer services, scoliosis surgeries and a plethora of people. The Minister said that was being done to fight Covid and free up spaces but they have not been freed up. We did not take over any of the capacity in the private hospitals. We did not do many of the things we should have done for the people who have cancers growing inside them and all kinds of problems and worries. I spoke to someone today whose daughter is waiting nearly two years for a mammogram. It is shocking. That causes worry, stress and fear. The Minister can spare me the lecture. If he had not been with us in opposition at the start and did not know anything else it would be different. The weight of big pharma on his hand signing those 171 regulations must be enormous.

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