Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am going to start by referencing the Law Reform Commission consultation report for a Bill that was never enacted. According to the abstract of the 2005 report:

The Report deals with the liability of corporations for the death of human persons arising from gross negligence. The Report recommends that an offence of 'corporate manslaughter' should be introduced, to be prosecuted on indictment only, where gross negligence involving a significant risk of death or serious personal harm causes death.... The offence would apply to “undertakings,” which would include public sector and private sector corporate entities and also unincorporated entities... The Report also recommends that there should be a separate offence of "grossly negligent management causing death."

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for his indulgence. I reason I brought that up is because if this Bill had been enacted, every Member on the other side of the House would be in jail now. There would be none of them on the benches of this House because of their gross negligence in minding the people of this country at a time of need. We must stop driving inflation through the roof because it is putting stress on people in this country. Young families are fighting to try to survive, families are trying to get on the housing ladder and all the Government can come up with as a housing policy is to put funding into the LDA plans which only work 15 minutes from the cities, which wipes out a lot of the towns and villages. Where I live in Limerick, it takes out two thirds of the towns and villages for infrastructure. If there was infrastructure in County Limerick, there would be houses built in all the towns and villages, which would then encourage businesses to stay open. Our school numbers would be up and our sports club numbers would be up. Across the board it would be self-contained because they would support each other. When towns and villages come together even to have a sports game, three or four parishes are joining together to have a team. Why? Because this Government is failing to invest in the towns and villages in rural Ireland outside of the cities. If they were supported in the counties, in turn they would support the cities because then we could make a plan for infrastructure and for a transport network to bring people in and out, whereby they would support both. The Government is just putting investment in one spot, like Dublin and the airports. We have seen that is wrong. Now, Shannon and Cork airports are growing because of this diversion of traffic. We should do the same with people, and allow our children to come home. There are people who want to come home to Dublin but cannot do so because it is overpopulated. People cannot come up here and work because they have no place to stay, so we are reducing their opportunities.

Looking at hospitality, in its mini budget the Government brought VAT from 9% back up to 13.5%, which adds €1 to the cost of every plate of food in a restaurant or hotel. That is what the Government has done for hospitality. It does not make any sense. On one hand, it is increasing the minimum wage, which I welcome, but on the other hand it is taking it back again in taxes.

Then there is the fuel tax. We look at the haulage and farming industries that produce our food, and the taxes that they have to pay on fuel to produce our food at the moment. The Government is taking 50 cent in every €1 back in tax.

What did it give back to the farmers today? Next to nothing. Representatives from Macra na Feirme were here recently fighting their case. The Tánaiste - the Taoiseach at the time - said to give him their model and he would look at it. They had a model done that was costing €8 million. They did not even get a look-in today. They were led up the garden path again. The Government has given some grants to the farmers for machinery. Contractors in this country do about 70% of the work for the farmers but it gave nothing to the contractors for machinery, which could reduce costs for farmers getting work done.

Let us look then at the Garda. We are going to have 1,000 extra gardaí. The Garda cannot keep the ones it has. They are counting the days and hours to get out because 98.7% have no confidence in Drew Harris, who was appointed by the Government. Again, it has left no voice for the gardaí and now it wants to encourage gardaí to come into the service. Why would they when their own Government or the head of the Garda would not listen to them? Why would somebody go down that line? Our protectors are our nurses. Our protectors are our medical staff. Our protectors are our gardaí. What does the Government do? It puts in its earplugs and pretends they are not there.

I will go back to the law reform Bill again. The Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, refused to take advice from TII on resurfacing and restructuring roads. TII said deaths would happen on the roads and he ignored it for road infrastructure. That is negligence on his behalf.

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