Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)

I, too, support this motion. I would question some aspects of it but the theme of it is very important. Are we going to abandon our forefathers and foremothers, people of our heritage? We had the Éamonn Bulfin Legacy Pipe Band from Argentina in Tipperary at the Liam Lynch national commemoration cúpla bliain ó shin. I thanked An Post because it obliged by giving the band a tour in there and allowing it to play in there. It was a wonderful occasion.

I refer to our Irishness, culture our heritage, "tír gan teanga, tír gan anam", and our soul. Where is the soul of this Government? I believe it is all over the world. Where is the Taoiseach tonight? Is he in Timbuktu, or somewhere in Japan or China? It does not matter. It is not Tipperary, Cork or Ireland. We seem to be acting for many other agencies, not serving the people under the Constitution those brave men and women fought for in that building. It is an iconic building, and it has to be held as a museum and a semi-sacred space to remind our politicians that this is Ireland. We represent the people. We are not leaders of the world. Our neutrality is an outdated concept according to the Taoiseach. We are putting money into a European army now, and God knows what next.

It is time for a wake-up call here regarding our language, heritage, culture and the iconic building of 1916, the GPO, and all that went on there with the brave men and women and the bloodshed. They took a stand to free us from peril, and what are we doing now? We are changing our country with migration and everything else, changing our culture completely. We are trying to turn ourselves inside out, and that is very bad. It is fatal, and people are waking up to it. Níl siad sásta, and why would they be sásta with that because it is a total betrayal of what the men and women of 1916 fought for in that building and all over Ireland as well.

See this speech in context