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

I cannot support the Minister tonight but I think Sinn Féin is wrong in what it is doing now. The timing is not right. The reason I cannot support the Minister, though, is not because of the riots or anything like that, but because we have hardworking gardaí who wanted the Minister to support them. Instead, she supported the Commissioner who did not have the confidence of 97% or 98% of the hardworking gardaí in this country.

On behalf of the gardaí in County Kerry, I cannot express confidence in the Minister tonight, no more than I could do so in the Commissioner. I refer to the good work of the GRA, and its hard-working representatives up and down the length and breadth of this country, but the Commissioner has not been listening to or has not been working for our gardaí. He was pulling against them instead of pulling with them. He was divisive and upsetting to them. At a time when we needed the Government to support the gardaí, it did not do so.

I do not agree with the timing of this motion but at the same time, and to answer honestly the question of whether I have confidence in the Minister, I am very sorry but I do not or I cannot, and this is the way I will be voting. Every one of the people who have been contacting me knows this is my feeling on the matter. I just want to express my sincere prayers for and sympathies to the people who were injured. I hope they will make a recovery. I thank the gardaí, the ambulance people, the other emergency personnel and the bystanders who assisted on that evening.

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