Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Those are only the ones that I am dealing with myself. Other Deputies have mentioned many others that are going on. I salute all the Deputies who have spoken here tonight. It behoves us as elected Members of this Dáil to live up to our Constitution and the freedoms that were fought for by those gallant men, or else we should pack up and go home, and let some dictator take it over. The Minister is covering the system. I raised last week the situation of Strokestown, where a false, illegal warrant was used in the High Court. That is going on day in, day out with repossession cases for families, with the Land Registry not being up to date and illegal warrants. The Minister for Justice, other Ministers for Justice and the Government are happy to preside over that. I salute Deputy McGuinness for coming here tonight. He broke ranks. He would not get time from his own party. He got some of the Minister's time by accident and was able to speak. I have a dossier from uachtarán Fhianna Fáil with 13 letters that he has written to the family. I see the hollowness and shallowness of it. He is in government now as Tánaiste and was there as Taoiseach. He will not do anything about it. I am not surprised because people all over the country have experienced this for decades. I think of the situation in County Limerick with a family who were literally poisoned by a factory and met Micheál Martin and Tony Holohan 35 years ago. They were dismissed as cannon fodder.

Holding on to the reins of power is more important to the Minister. To hell with justice and to hell with respect for ordinary people. Is it any wonder that many will not come out and vote? They have lost interest in voting and lost faith in the system. The Minister will not support the gardaí. We have never had fewer gardaí. To think that a man with so many crimes could be at large. The whole system had fabrications and failings. He could be stopped at a checkpoint and be put in charge of the car by a member of An Garda Síochána. He had to be an insider and a Garda informer; otherwise, he could not get away with what he did. It is a sad indictment of our country that a person like him could still be at large. We do not know where he is. He could be down the street here on Grafton Street tonight, for all we know. Many other families are going through that kind of thing up and down the country. The Minister is happy to preside over that as her legacy.

I am not allowing this charade tonight with the Minister accepting the motion and putting it back in for more discussion, debate, delay, subterfuge and denial until she is out of office. I will be calling a vote on this motion on behalf of my colleagues tonight.

We will see where her members are then.

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