Mattie McGrath demands debate, criticises NGOs over migration

I too am glad to be able to speak on this year this evening, and it's timely that we have a debate on this. The Migration Pact, as we know, has been signed and there was no debate. And for the last five years here, certainly the last three years since the war broke out in Ukraine and then with other issues all over the world, we couldn't have a debate here. I stood up at Business Committee meeting after meeting for a year and a half, and we finally got a debate here. Anyway, the government didn't even have to come in, and the Minister came and introduced it, but the left parties attacked me and my colleagues. Anybody who wants to debate this, we couldn't. Shut down debate. Same as the media. Same as with gas and everything else. You own it. And I heard someone earlier saying people who go marching for gas or something, and they can't do something else. So you have control now what you want to do. Couldn't speak about it. Hear no evil, see no evil, and there is no evil. All I wanted was a reasonable, calm debate without being word whistled and dog whistled and God knows what else, and jeered and humiliated, and tried to be humiliated. I wasn't. I was just speaking that we have to cut our cloth according to measure. We can take so many, we're known for the welcome, but we can't have a walkover. And I warmly welcome the change to the integration department to Minister Jim O'Callaghan's, and his immediate work, and his ongoing work, and the proposals he brought the cabinet, I understand today, to try and have some common sense brought in here. Anybody that's here and has gone through the system and failed, they shouldn't be here full stop. And when I see the, I think it's the Irish Refugee Trust, I could be wrong, but one of those NGOs, well paid with taxpayers' money, contesting and supporting and going to the High Court with persons, God helpers that were here and they failed all the tests and they were being deported and going back. There was something badly wrong in the state of Ireland, and the state of Denmark used to have the state, when these government-funded, taxpayer-funded NGOs are going against the government, going against the people. These people have gone through all the systems, got failed trial, and did everything else, and then we take court cases. It's time we cop down here and turn the tap off on these NGOs who are bleeding the taxpayer dry, and I hear any time I turn on RT, there's one of them on or the other, and supported here by the left cabal. To hear that they're not in government, or probably won't be in government, but want to control everything else, and they want to control what I say, what I speak, and the people I represent in Tipperary. I will represent my people fearlessly while they give me a mandate to be in here, and I will be as welcome as anybody else. I had people up here last week from Bridgewater House in Carrick, wonderful group of people doing great work there, from several different countries all over the world, and of course, I'm not a racist or a biggie or anything else. Fair play is fine play with me, and I support the government. This debate here is a long way to go, so I have an open mind on it. We should take the funding, yes, but we can't give up our sovereignty, so it's very important that we have a debate, and we're allowed to have a debate, and we're not shouting it down. It has changed now, with all the mood-nises, but the left, of course, don't like it, because they want to be running the country while shouting from the opposition. Thank you. Thank you.