Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas and I compliment the Independent Group for bringing forward this motion. I was delighted to meet Richard Gleeson, the vintners' representative, and Michael Foley, of Foley's Bar in Cashel. They run two fabulous establishments, one in Clonmel and one in Cashel as do the other publicans and the other people who were there yesterday.

Some 600 such establishments have closed. What more does the Government want? It caps it all then for those people going home last night, who were saddened that they had to come here the first place, that the Government found €1 billion to block holes again that its Departments had wasted with overruns by bringing in a Supplementary Estimate. It is a shocking disgrace. If those people go in and vote for the Government again in the next election, I will give up because if the people can be fooled like that and if it can rob the taxpayers' money with such wasteful carry on, it is unbelievable. They came up here yesterday in their hundreds, workers and company owners. Some 600 have closed in the past 15 months. Can the Government not see the writing on the wall? Deputy Micheál Martin comes out now to say that it must be reviewed. If that was not an election gimmick from a bribe government, I will never know. That is the best thing that he has been at all of his life, which is the setting up of reviews and committees to investigate stuff and doing nothing. He will go down in history as the do-nothing Tánaiste or Taoiseach and Minister. He sets up this report and that report and he will give Deloitte and Touche another €1 million to have an investigation into RTÉ and then he gives them €750 million to sell propaganda for the Government. It is a shocking and the Government should be charged and arraigned for fraud in what it is doing in wasting taxpayers' money.

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