Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I compliment Sinn Féin on bringing forward this motion. This motion should not be necessary and the Ministers should have the heart and the empathy with the people to support them. These are hard-working people who are carrying the weight of the bank bailout. I called it the bank cleanout at the time. What happened at the time was daylight robbery. All those bankers and bondholders had insurance bonds and were never even touched and were doubly covered. The weight of that then was put down on ordinary people. Now, with inflation and the cost of living, and with the ECB putting up interest rates, where every second week we have a president or somebody coming from the European Parliament, I ask what the Government is trying to do to our people. These are the working people who had the vision and courage to take out mortgages and to house themselves. They did not run or look to the State for housing. Now they are being literally destroyed with interest rate increases which render them having to scrounge for food, to put clothes on their children’s backs, to educate their children and to try to get to work. They just cannot manage. The cost of living and even of going out for a cup of coffee nowadays is just exorbitant.

I raised earlier today with An Taoiseach the fuel economy breaks which the Government has given because of the rising cost of fuel and of food inflation at 16%. It has risen by 16% for a trolley of food in the past three months, and we ask that the Government give people some reliefs. The Government says it will tell them in the middle of February but 1 March is fast approaching. These people cannot sleep in their beds at night with the worry. I am sure that the Government Ministers are meeting them in their constituency clinics, if they hold such clinics, or are their cluasa dúnta i gcónaí? Is the Government not listening to them because they are there?

The previous Minister for Finance - the jury is out on the current Minister, a bhí ina chara liom uair amháin - was a friend of the banks. I refer to the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, who is a colleague of the current Minister. His last act was to give the bankers’ bonuses back to them. That allowed a situation where a fair cohort of people will earn €1.8 million a year. What kind of obscene behaviour was that? Who needs or wants at any time €1.8 million to survive and to keep going? Tá mo chuid ama caite. I will hand over to my colleague, Deputy Michael Collins.

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