Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too am delighted to speak to the Minister of State. No disrespect to an tAire Stáit but cá bhfuil an tAire, an Teachta Michael McGrath? Tá sé as láthair.

I welcome the extension of the current reliefs for agriculture. I also welcome the continuation of the 9% VAT rate but the Government has to be more selective in future. The people who engaged in price gouging, or docked people money and intend to rip them off again, who are mostly confined to the cities, should be dealt with. We cannot have one-size-fits-all.

What the Government did regarding BIK is another disgrace. I raised this at the Joint Committee on Finance with then Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, and he treated me with total disdain. All I wanted was a review of BIK. Many people are out there, especially in businesses, who the Government expects to force to buy fleets of company cars. Businesses are on their knees. They are below their knees, in case the Government did not know. How can they be forced to buy a fleet of electric cars just to suit the Government's fantasy projects? In many parts of the country, business employees would be stuck on the road for hours because there is no place to charge these cars. The infrastructure is not there. I do not know when the Government will realise that.

Why is there inertia regarding the windfall tax on the big companies? When the Finance Bill came in and the budget was announced, the usual suspects were up at midnight that night. The Minister is now talking about September or, hopefully, the end of summer for when the windfall tax will be introduced but it will only be €400 million to €700 million. Gouging and kiboshing by big companies has gone on and they have the Government in their pockets but it will not tackle them. This is happening across the economy. I do not know why the Government will not deal with that. It is inertia and inability to do so.

On the banks we bailed out, it was not "we". I voted for the bail-out, which was the biggest mistake I ever made. The bail-out was not a mistake because I called it a clean-out but I voted to protect the banks on that fatal night, bigger fool that I was. The gouging and blaggarding that our main banks and the vulture funds are now giving our citizens is nothing short of a disgrace. The then Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan, did not want to know about it at the time and successive Ministers also did not want to know about it. It is sickening, despicable and outrageous behaviour that these funds can buy people's loans and sell them off. Businesses I am dealing with now do not even have bank managers any more. These are faceless entities. I am not talking about the hard-working staff who work in banks - I cannot say "tellers" because they are not there any more - the work done by ordinary people. The obscene salary increases were the last desperate act their friend, then Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, did before he left office in order to give them back their bonuses. They needed the €1.5 million. My God, what kind of Ireland have we?

We are then facing the eviction motion and the shenanigans and games going on here. It is really political posturing. The sooner the Government gets up, packs up its bags and goes off with its bedfellows, the better.

Go into the hills somewhere, call an election and let the people who want to govern and represent the people who have elected them to this House to do so, rather than looking after the real estate investment trusts, REITs, banks, big conglomerates and vulture funds. That is wrong; it is rotten.

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