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

Justice rushed is justice denied. That is the main thrust of doubling the working days allowable to permit people a proper chance to organise, to put together and to fight their case, if they have the prospect of penalty points being imposed against them.

There is no other sector of society, except farmers, whose members are targeted as much for going about their daily work. Can you imagine a person working in a factory, building site or any other place of work, where people are down on him or her as much as they are on fishermen and farmers? There is another group, that of lorry drivers and the Road Safety Authority, another agency that is also tormenting people. Certain categories of hard-working people in Ireland today are treated like criminals before they do anything. You have to shake your head and ask why. A typical example tonight is why the Minister would resist this amendment. Why does he not see the common sense in saying yes to an extra 30 days being added on to allow people proper time to put together their defence?

It is a fact that when people go out to fish they can be gone for a period if the weather is good and, if they are catching and things are going their way, they will not come in. If they have to prepare a case to defend themselves while there is the prospect of continuing to make their living if they are getting on good when they are outside, how in the name of God can they come in to fight a case like that? Of course, that is what the Government wants to do. It wants to take them off the water because it does not want them fishing in the first place or it would not be doing half of what it is doing against them. It just does not make sense.

It again comes back to what farmers and fishermen have done to this Government that it will try to impede, upset, torment and agitate them and come down on them every way it can. It is a wonderment to me and to them. We are all completely at a loss and completely confused to know what set the Government has got against them. Is it because of the beautiful Green Party I talked about earlier? Members of the Government will be remembered forever for firmly being in bed with the Green Party and for selling its soul for power by doing so. It will never be allowed to forget it. It will be remembered forever for all the horrible things it is doing, including all the impositions of additional carbon taxes and all the taxes it is imposing on the people of Ireland every day.

The wrath of God will come down on the Government. When voters cast their votes and members of the Government wonder what happened, they should remember nights like tonight. They will say that maybe if they had listened to Sinn Féin, the Rural Independent Group and other people who said to listen to common sense, they would not find themselves in the position in which I am sure they will find themselves. Not one of us knows where anybody will be, but I know one thing. I know where the voters will be and they are not going to be on the Government's side. The day it attacks the working people and the day it will not help the people who are trying to make a living, my God, is the most fundamental thing in the whole world.

In Ireland, we have a coast all around us. God knows the livelihoods of fishers have been eroded by the bad deals that have been done in Europe, by the way they have been continuously shafted and sold down the river and by all the times they have been neglected and let down by this and successive governments in the past. It is a miracle they are in existence at all. We are trying to encourage young people. I have spoken to fishermen who desperately want to see members of their families and the younger generation continuing in the business. They are very despondent. Anybody looking in tonight, and listening to the contributions and what was said earlier about the Government resisting the ordinary amendments we are trying to put forward to try to make it more acceptable for fishing people to make their living, will see that all our amendments are being rubbished. Why - because they are coming from us? They are coming from us because the Green Party will not allow them. It is just a horrible situation.

People are listening tonight. Please do not think we are in the Chamber on our own. Farmers are watching and listening, as are their representative groups. Fishermen and their representative groups are watching, listening and looking at the way people are voting. If anybody thinks when they are blindly rowing in behind the Government tonight that nobody is watching and taking notice, and nobody will remember, I can tell them they will remember. They will remember who did what, what they were doing and from where they were doing it. People will know how Members voted on these amendments; you can be sure of that. If the press do not report it, the groups that are representing the farmers and the fishers will know it and they will remember it. It is an awful thing to do.

Again, I am amazed that an amendment that just gives people additional time to prepare and to stand up for themselves against the wrath of the Government if they are being taken to court for an alleged offence is being opposed. Fisherman commit an offence when they pull up their trousers in the morning as far as the Government is concerned because it believes fishers should not be fishing in the first instance. That is a fact. You can laugh all you like but I can tell you one thing; there is no fisherman, fisherwoman or fishing family laughing at that statement because they feel like they are criminals. It is the exact same as a lorry driver who gets into his or her lorry in the morning. They also feel like criminals because they are being targeted. Working people are being targeted by this Government and the agencies of the State that are supposed to represent the people but are instead representing something else.

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