Mattie McGrath criticises vaccine rollout and backs Labour amendment

I do want to rise to support the Labour Party's amendment and indeed the other associated amendments that have been attached to it and we have a number of amendments ourselves in the Rural Independence and I want to thank our office for assisting and they were quite detailed and quite rushed because we didn't have a lot of time but I do utterly believe that we don't have enough time to discuss this we're hardly going to reach many of the amendments by the looks of things I probably don't need this Kate Count and if we go to half or we won't even have a vote on this amendment so we have to be cognizant of that but look someone says it's closing the door when the hosses bolted I said the hosses are already in Chettingham I said that this morning I'm not further away because Deputy Kelly will be aware and other group leaders and party leaders ever since we started this pandemic at meetings with the T-shirt when we used to have weekly briefings or fort monthly briefings we hadn't won now since late November just for the record from the T-shirt or anybody else and they're talking about collaboration and keeping people informed and we I always wanted a quarantine at the airports and restricted and travel for a simple reason not that I'm a kiddie I don't want people traveling and not that I am you know I want to lock them up and throw away the keys I'm not at all but the Irish people have made heroic efforts and I want to sympathize with anyone who has lost a loved one and not being able to attend their families of a proper funeral and everything else and you know I want to salute everybody involved trying to beat the virus but we were just what I said at the time was it was like drawing water and I remember it as a book alone drawing water from a well with a bucket and there were holes in the bucket you'd never fill your churn simple as that because people are coming in and out and we're shocked into finding the figures I didn't in my wildest dreams think that that kind of figures were coming in but they are coming in and have been coming in and we wanted to be the post-advice of Europe every answer I got from the previous teacher and this teacher was oh we're European we're in this together with Europe but Poland and Hungary were able to seal their borders and other places within Europe and have various degrees of success so we couldn't do it we're the good buys the white buys and in Europe and we want to be the best Europeans we were best in the class at that stage they were telling us then we went to work in the class and nowhere we're now we're not in the class at all but we certainly are not getting flare-cracking when it comes to vaccines from Europe because when you look across the pond with our nearest neighbours and what vaccines they have acquired outside of the EU it's just staggering 13 million or something 12.6 million and we're here patting us on the back that we have 350 odd thousand people vaccinated and I said this year and the minister's here again I'm tired of asking he won't answer about the flu vaccine which was rolled out last summer late last summer I've asked them in November I've asked them three weeks ago and again this morning to tell me what I've been told misinformation from good sources I don't believe I am that only 1.4 of the 2 million vaccines can be accounted for so how then was the HSE Department of Health whoever going to roll out this and there was this morning figure of 10 million vaccines not a hope in hell so children with a jigsaw if they couldn't make the jigsaw with one with two million how are they going to make it with 10 million pieces and I have horrific cases of people that were so bite up I was talking to many of them last Monday week in Tipperary over 85 now mind they contacted me they were going for their job on Wednesday to care to a doctor's centre and indeed cardiac injury or whatever and thanks pretty god one doctor surgeries got the vaccine and they all got the vaccines the other doctor in the town got no vaccines and 116 odd injections never never arrived look now this can go wrong with anyone but there's no information since that's that's eight days ago now as to where they are where they went why didn't come and when would they come and it's awful and a son of a son of 101 she's 101st year wonderful woman she was a businesswoman not alive she's a sprightly woman was one of the people going in for the vaccine and she was turned down they're not a very sick couple in that age group as I said and I won't mention the name but they're just desperate waiting the anticipation and expectation and the delight of going for it and they're not getting it and now we can't get information to tell them you'll have it next Wednesday or whenever what is so dysfunctional I have the same in Carrick and Shure with a doctor's practice same thing happened most of them got their vaccine to doctors but one practice in South Kilkenny and and South Tipperary didn't get it people again told sorry and left down so why is it so dysfunctional why should it be so dysfunctional I mean but as I said I wasn't happy with the way they have they've administered a few vaccine for years I'm told if this has been going on that accountability is negative and as negligent so how are the people supposed to have hope to hope to be so badly need this beautiful spring day looking out and seeing it and how are we going to get the people to follow us I believe in the natural curl the kale they go knee but look the government have made a hamster I've said this this morning again that this teacher can this minister you minister have dropped the ball spectacularly since you took over the baton you were so mad again the government you couldn't wait at least there was a coordination and there was a kind of a system in place with previous Taoiseach and indeed the previous minister of health and we were always as opposition groups informed now we're sure shut out of it you know best we know nothing you don't want our advice you just want to come in here and kind of further and vote for it I have huge issues about voting for this legislation because it's inadequate it's quite inept and it's it's ten months too late and also then is it workable and you tell us all and Mr. Ryan was chatting again about it that the Gardaí are doing checks in homes already the Gardaí are frustrated too they're getting reams of of of documentation and that's the inspector level and superintendent level and down to the sergeant and Chad but there are the guards on the ground and I said hey I'm trying to do their job and they're frustrated too they have families too and they haven't got a vaccine either I've got it out of the very far down the list of it so they have to deal with all kinds of situations and during any 24 hour or any 12 hour stint so look everybody is it's not a kind of fusion and I only hope and believe that the vaccine will do what it's meant to do and people won't get COVID but that's not the insurance I got from Tony Olin or our teacher of Martin but I'm just saying that this outfit is not fit for purpose former teacher count told me in this house privately that they were just going to expand the HSE we all know it's just not fit for purpose we see the problems in my constituency in Limerick one of the worst places for beds this week for trolleys we see the problems with the mental health service I had a woman on to me recently about a man looking for mental health therapy consultation privately wait 12 months for it to go privately it's someone said it's an epidemic going to start it's here we're in the middle of it people are just locked away can't grieve can't support each other can't visit houses can't go anywhere and we see this tomfool we're in at the airports that's what I call it that people can waltz in and waltz out and both of the about it and might feel a forum sometimes and then they might um they might get a call call or they won't we're told at christmas that it crashed after christmas the whole tracing system because of pressure but there's no intent to seal the people from coming from abroad and there must be so there's huge pitfalls within the legislation and I believe it could be open to a legal challenge too the minister hasn't given us any timeline I know we're debating it today and it's been guillotined which is a shame because it means that many amendments that I and other groups or our group have put down won't be reached there was no timeline a few times I can see of implementation when is it I know it's in the senate on monday but when it'll be signed into law and when we'll and you've said we'll have when we'll make the preparations then to enact it no date just send it up to pack to be signed like other pieces of legislation that aren't implemented that were passed and how are we going to know what the different aspects of it are and have they the hotels procured have they the security staff or whatever to look after nothing like that is any detail at all it's a winging a prayer and a kind of a wish list and the people will be good they have been good and they've been very good but that good will carry so far and they're fairly fairly uh they're fairly fatigued now and fairly tired and so are the nurses and nursing staff and to think then that um we'll give them a round of applause here in the in the chamber rather than pay them a meager amount of thing I also have a question to ask and it's in relation to the vaccination how it's so more expensive to have them carried out here than it is across the water I think 14 pounds if I'm right for uh two vaccinations and 60 here for one that's my uh that's my uh when I'm told why why why why is this is this rip off Ireland why is it so expensive why can't we uh run this out in community halls run this out with the retired nurses run run this out with um the people that joined up the professional be able to signed up in their thousands uh for for Ireland's call and only 300 of them or whatever engaged with so they're there we have them is it a preserver or certain preserves of people that will keep this until I have no faith in the figures that the minister that he should give the other night for june to june figures not a hope at the rate we're going not a hope even if we had the vaccines not a hope when you can't find doctors in care you can't find them about here in dublin 10 as deputy smith said and no explanation you ring up and no one can give you an answer when they'll be where they would they come the next whatever we have no we're just dysfunctional in the extremes pathetic and I have as I said very very serious issues about it and I'm totally totally you know not in favor of this half-baked piece of legislation we did it here some time ago on a forestry but I don't want to equate the two issues but I voted against it because I said it was useless the bill and it has proved to be useless and many of my colleagues voted for it and said half a bill is better than none this is not even half a bill it's not coordinated it's not thought out and it's not proper and why is the minister of health I'm told dealing with it I was told that he answered Clare Burden saying that he he has it because he was given it so he's goodbye in the class he'll take his punishment take his take his lessons and you do he was given it so why isn't the minister why isn't justice dealing with these issues here and it must just could be asked about to guarantee have they been briefed on this have they been schooled and educators and and and and and rolled out and trained them enough to do without to be looking after a quarantine and hotels and everything else and that too few of them there so I have huge issues with it I again won't go on for too long more because I could go into all the different people have been affected but I will ask that why we can have an election for instance in a day every pool and boat in the country for a long day from seven in the morning to maybe ten at night and we have two officials in most places in the country per boot and they can be counted in a couple days after and that's for four million people maybe only half of them vote but we can do it in one day that's going to take it maybe five years by looks of things to go out of vaccination surely we have that template I don't want to just compliment a certain businessman in temporary who can't be with that idea yesterday morning so how come you William O'Halloran how can you how can you have an election in a day which we can with our organization and coordination and have it and have it has stood the state sets of time well and I'll beat the fiasco with the with with the voting machines but we can have it and we're going to go on forever the people are sick sore and tired of George Lee and Fergal Bowers their own channels they should have I said it a deputy former deputy Lee found his vocation now to strike fear into every elderly person in the country remember these people who are are at home and can't leave and watching this many only have that channel but we need some light entertainment the people want to give that and are allowed they can't go to worship as one of the only countries in the world when we're level 3 that we couldn't go to public worship yet we can see some religious people can flood into buildings and flood out and no no morgue in it and the same with certain funerals so thousands of people after hundreds of people probably 500 the funeral history in in in in East Limerick shocking with no masks or nothing and other people didn't are wandering a bit deputy yes I am I'm sorry this is factual and it's necessary I'm not dog whistling I'm not dog whistling I'm telling the truth of it the people are relaying to me they're hugely frustrated they can't go to their services of any denomination and it seems what other people can do tonight and that's the basic nutshell of it and the government haven't dealt with it won't deal with it and this piece of legislation can't deal with it because it's not it's not um it's not foolproof it's not thought proof amendments won't be accepted obviously as we won't get to them would it be accepted anyway so we've been ruled out of order as others have said so I'm not a dog whistling I'm telling the facts what they are that the people of Ireland have suffered enough from the cradle to the grave they've suffered enough we've not been able to be have company when there in maternity was giving birth and not being able to grieve at a funeral of a as well as a normal death or as a covert death it's shocking that only ten people can go into a church or whatever big families everything it's a shocking and they were willing to put the shoulder wheel as they did last spring and fought a gallantly put a fatigue and the mixed messages come from ministers and I it isn't this minister here and I sit down after this I remember in the Iran war but they did what they took to an Iraq sorry and Kamakil Ali has come on every night telling us we're no we're winning the war to them the bombs falling around them minister Donnelly was the very same in Claiborne Kamakil Ali Kamakil Donnelly Gooramahchut