Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State talked about the second half of 2023 and maybe we will get something in 2024. We cannot wait that long, because everything is being harvested up, including people's cash reserves, their patience and their resilience. Above all, this is about our support for the people we are elected to represent. We are not elected to drive them off the edge of a cliff.

This affects many people, and they are not all elderly. Lots of elderly people are way more proficient in electronic communication than I am, but I am thinking of the people I listed earlier, including the homeless and vulnerable. You see signs in hospitals saying "No more cash accepted here after 1 January". You cannot get your ceadúnas to drive on the road from the National Driver Licence Service, NDLS, centres. This is happening. It is a relentless push. Every time a customer uses a card up to 3.5% is taken from the small business. Goodness knows it is hard enough to keep the doors of a business open at the moment given the efforts of the electricity and oil companies. The Government will not defend businesses from those either.

I do not know what has got into the political system. We mark 100 years since the death of the likes of Liam Lynch and Micheal Collins and the Ballyseedy murders and everything else and pay homage to what they did, yet we allow our people to be downtrodden and crucified by big corporations. Anything to do with corporations is big and beautiful. Last week we saw the Bill to have corporate sections in the credit unions. We need to support our people. Under Bunreacht na hÉireann it is our solemn duty to serve the people who elect us, but we need a lesson in that. We need tutorials to be put on to remind the Government of what its responsibilities are. Its members love trotting out to Europe. They are trotting all over the world now. They are not trotting but flying for St. Patrick's Day. It is the biggest exodus since the Famine. God help me for making the comparison with that perilous situation but the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, cannot keep up with the places he is going. Someone said yesterday that he is hiring an adviser to advise an adviser. He will need them. He needs someone to be ahead of him, behind him and with him, all on the one road - the bóthar díreach. There will be no carbon tax on the trips and we little minions here must pay up and shut up.

The GAA, Cumann Lúthchleas Gael, played a huge part in our history. It was founded in one of our home towns in Tiobraid Árann - Dúrlas Éile - many years ago. I think of the ideas those men had and I cannot believe the GAA is one of the first big national organisations to go cashless. It is shameful of the association. I have written to the ard stiúrthóir and indeed the county chairman, but I did not even get an acknowledgement. The association has got so big now, is so in bed with the Government and is so obliging, that this is how it thinks it can treat its loyal supporters. Many other clubs and organisations are thinking of going the same way. It is shameful. I am thinking of two sagairt pharóiste who are retired. They are assistant pastors now and do great work. They were excellent hurlers on the field. I would not like to have been playing against them because they pulled on the ground and pulled on the ball and they were great hurlers. They gave great service to their clubs and to their county and they love to go to matches. They have not been to a match in 18 months since this carry-on came in, because they live alone and do not have families to help them. They are embarrassed as much as anything else. They do not want to have to ask somebody to buy tickets for them. Did you ever see the beat of it? Years ago you could go to a dance for a tenner. You might have only eight bob, but you could ask someone passing whether there was any chance of getting a half crown to make up the tenner. You might have been embarrassed, but now grown men in their late 70s or 80s must ask someone else to buy them at ticket.

It is about the cash sa phóca. I was in Belfast at the weekend and things have been done up there to protect their cash. It is the same in Denmark. Why are we laggards in everything that is good for our people? The Minister of State talked about legislation the Government might introduce but we have not seen the heads of it. We have seen no draft guidelines or had anything for committees to get their teeth into. Why the delay? Is the Government complicit in the removal of cash by means of delay, subterfuge and everything else? I think so. I cannot come to any other conclusion. The Government has decided to accept the Rural Independent Group's motion, speak in favour of it, have a kick at Sinn Féin and settle political scores in the middle of it and then not even use the full deich nóiméad to answer the question and deal with the salient, important points we have raised.

The Visa cashless challenge was announced in 2017 by that company. Mastercard also brought us on a cashless journey. We are adoring of these card companies and it saddens me. I am not antiquated or backward-looking and I use cards. However, I see the daoine óige being indoctrinated into using cards to buy everything. It could be chewing gum, a bar of chocolate, a cocktail, a mineral, a cup of coffee or anything else. The control element in all that is my big fear. What about when they go to get a mortgage or any kind of loan from the bank? First they will have to find a bank that is open and a manager who will talk to them. They will not be able to. Where is the bank in Clonmel? Is someone able to tell me where the bank is in Cashel? The banks intend on abandoning the people totally. They are well on their way and do not care about governments because governments are complicit. That has been proven today because the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael McGrath, an-chara liom riamh, is absent and so is the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. They would not even come in to debate this motion that every group in this House thought was important, and that is some signal to the banks. The signal is a nod and a wink and says away ye go lads to the banks and tells them they can charge what they like. Interest rates are going up again this week, as we know. We see this pressure and saw the devastation left after people were brought through the courts, evicted and everything else and now we are on our merry way to a cashless society.

I have nine grandchildren, thank God, and uimhir a deich on the way, le cúnamh Dé, and I love to give them a few bob in cash. Every grandparent does. Then there are first communions and whatever else. There is the person who wants to give a tip, which could be to the lorry driver doing a delivery or someone bringing home the turf when that was allowed. You got a large bottle and a fiver as a tip and everyone was happy because the turf was home and ready for the winter.

I beg the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach's indulgence on this, but I want to see action. I want to see a prescriptive timeline for when the Government is going to introduce heads of Bill-----

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