Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Ar an gcéad dul síos, ba mhaith liom comhghairdeas a dhéanamh leis an dá Aire. I wish them well in their new portfolios. I listened to the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, with great aplomb because he has stated quite clearly he is going to support An Garda Síochána and do a lot of work there. We all - every man, woman and child - must support An Garda Síochána. We need them so badly. Under the carer's badge I always wear here I mention Councillor Richard Molloy who was an unsuccessful candidate for the Seanad but did very well. He is the carers' support manager in south Tipperary. After a long time arguing about it, getting rid of the horrible means test is included, albeit over the five year programme. I welcome this. There are also so many other projects. What we really need to do is get accountability and stop the runaway projects. One just mentioned is the Parteen to Dublin water pipe. They talked about €2 billion for that. Now it has gone to €10 billion before it even starts. We must get value for money. There is the 60-bed long-stay unit in St. Patrick’s site in Cashel that has not been delivered and Brigid's Hospital in Carrick-on-Suir that needs to be reopened. Then of course there is mental health. We do not have a single mental health long-stay bed in Tipperary. South, you pass to go to Kilkenny who are full and, north, you pass to go to Ennis. That is not fair.

We also need the reinstatement of the borough councils because it was the best way of getting people into politics locally and serving their own people. It brought people on from that as well.

We need a reform of the National Ambulance Service and we need a new ambulance space for south Tipperary as the one we have is chronic. There are many aspects of the programme that I welcome and support and I look forward to the change. I am quite pleased that the Government has taken Michael Ring's advice. It was gone too far liberal and too far left for far too long. We are back to basics, bread and butter - infrastructure and looking after people. The CAMHS service in south Tipperary is non-existent and there is the whole area of mental health. They are linked. There is also the frustration for people trying to get special needs places. I know everything cannot be done together but, working together, we will be able to achieve much.

We badly need a bypass for Tipperary town. I raised this earlier during questions on promised legislation. I got a good response from the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy O'Brien. There are issues like that. It cannot be all Dublin-centric. There must be investment in rural Ireland. We have good people out there. We have proud people in Ireland willing to put their shoulder to the wheel. We saw that meitheal spirit in the recent storm incidents. I thank the Ceann Comhairle and the Government Whip for giving us some time here. We have parties here who want us to be silenced and we have so-called Independents, fake Independents I call them, in Independent Ireland who want to silence us also-----

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