Independent TD for Cork South-West Michael Collins has robustly defended his decision to vote no confidence in the Government during a heated Dáil debate on the issue today.
Deputy Collins stated that although housing was the main area of focus at present, the evidence also points to an array of political and policy failures across the majority of ministerial Departments and for that reason alone he could not possibly support any further continuation of the present Government:
“We have a million people on health waiting lists of one kind or another. We have generations of older people being consigned to potential blindness or physical immobility because of a failure to provide adequate access in the state. Instead, they must travel with me to Belfast or go blind. We have a fishing sector in ruins, and we now have a dairy sector facing calamity due to the nitrates and Banding debacle,” said Deputy Collins.
“In addition to that we have energy companies that are continuing to run up obscene profits on the backs of ordinary households while they also push small businesses into the ground or while forcibly reducing their opening hours.”
“Then we have vulture funds snapping at the heels of family run hotels like O’Donovan’s Hotel in Clonakilty. We have a rural transport sector that is not-fit purpose and punitive levels of environmental ambition that aims to drive the rural motorist off the road while increasing carbon tax to the tune of hundreds of millions each year.”
“How any TD could possibly vote confidence in this Government is a mystery to me. This administration is a scandal and an affront to good governance. It needs to go and it needs to go now,” Deputy Collins concluded.