Results 1,061-1,080 of 20,725 for speaker:Mattie McGrath
- Local Government (Household Charge) Bill 2011 [Seanad]: Second Stage (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: Old friends are best, always.
- Local Government (Household Charge) Bill 2011 [Seanad]: Second Stage (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: The Minister and Deputy McGuinness were good friends for a while, but I hear they are going to fall out on this one. We could use many different words and moods to describe the Minister, but he said this would be a short and straightforward Bill. There is nothing short about it, although it is straightforward and direct. It is penalising ordinary householders - the people who went out and...
- Local Government (Household Charge) Bill 2011 [Seanad]: Second Stage (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: The Minister brought it back because he got frightened. The Minister is a big man - I described him before as Big Phil - but he was a coward when it came to that, because it was a cowardly act. This Bill is also a cowardly act. It is hitting people below the belt, and it is unfair, mean and lousy. We are going down in a minute to launch a book by the Minister's colleague, the Minister for...
- Local Government (Household Charge) Bill 2011 [Seanad]: Second Stage (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: I am talking through the Chair.
- Local Government (Household Charge) Bill 2011 [Seanad]: Second Stage (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: The seating arrangements are difficult where I am sitting, but I will address the Chair. Anyway, I wish the Minister well in politics. He has been in it a lot longer than I have. He is a practical man from a neighbouring constituency to mine. He used to be practical and he used to listen to the people, empathise with them and work for them, but that has all changed. When Fine Gael Party...
- Local Government (Household Charge) Bill 2011 [Seanad]: Second Stage (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: None the less, he was out there. Then he came back today and withdrew the Water Services (Amendment) Bill, and rightly so. He should also withdraw the Bill we are discussing, because it is a disgraceful attack on law-abiding citizens with threats of law. What is it all for? Is it to keep a bureaucratic system of local government in place? When I joined the county council in the 1990s,...
- Local Government (Household Charge) Bill 2011 [Seanad]: Second Stage (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: It is a huge system, top-heavy with officials - not the ordinary people who are doing the work on the ground. There are no men with shovels on the ground. We will pay these charges, but roads and sewer systems are being neglected - everything is being neglected. The briars are meeting you up the boreens. They have done away with the local improvement schemes and everything that was in any...
- Rural Areas: Motion (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, and wish her well after her week long sojourn. I look forward to travelling to the east coast with her next week or the week after. This is an excellent motion and it cuts to the nub of the matter. The motion "condemns the Government for introducing a series of budgetary measures that discriminate against...
- Rural Areas: Motion (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: Perhaps I will but we at one on this issue. It is an outrageous attack on ordinary people, including the poor, the working class and the new poor.
- Rural Areas: Motion (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: It is devastating blow and the Government Members can heckle all they want. Some of them were not here last time but many of them were condemning everything out of hand.
- Rural Areas: Motion (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: I was of course. I am glad to be sitting here again and I hope to be back on the other side some other time. I do not know if the Members opposite will be coming back because the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources recently told us that the last election was an extraordinary event. I told him that the next election will be even more extraordinary.
- Rural Areas: Motion (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: In regard to attacks on disadvantaged areas and farm assist, farming will get us out of the recession but the poorest areas have been hit hardest. The IFA's lobbying paid off for the strong Fine Gael farmers. There is nobody on the Labour Party benches. I could call them a name used 50 years ago but we all know what I mean. I will not speak about disability cuts because, thankfully, they...
- Rural Areas: Motion (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: ----- brought it back in again as a simple way to save a few million euro. They were not thinking about people. We will only have memories of Garda stations after the Government has closed them. We can show pictures to our children so they can see what we used to have in rural areas. The Minister for Education and Skills has a death wish for small schools. They are the best schools we ever...
- Local Government (Household Charge) Bill 2011 [Seanad]: Second Stage (Resumed) (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: That is a false statement. Where are the Government Members?
- Local Government (Household Charge) Bill 2011 [Seanad]: Second Stage (Resumed) (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: It is a false statement.
- Local Government (Household Charge) Bill 2011 [Seanad]: Second Stage (Resumed) (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: There was some con last February. It was the con of all cons.
- Local Government (Household Charge) Bill 2011 [Seanad]: Second Stage (Resumed) (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: He is not far away.
- Local Government (Household Charge) Bill 2011 [Seanad]: Second Stage (Resumed) (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: We had that before.
- Local Government (Household Charge) Bill 2011 [Seanad]: Second Stage (Resumed) (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: It was an auction. You wanted 50% at the time. The Minister will remember the auction in 1977.
- Local Government (Household Charge) Bill 2011 [Seanad]: Second Stage (Resumed) (13 Dec 2011)
Mattie McGrath: You wanted 50%.