You did not stay long

It is a lorry.

We know what it is.

It did not cost €326,000. You put more bicycles in here than in the bicycle shed.

You will be gone then.

I thank the Taoiseach for the reply. We have been living on promises for a long time. When the Taoiseach says that he and this one and that one are going to do something, it will be after the election. We will have to wait to see who is there. When is the Government going to react and lift the embargo? The facts are that day after day, young boys and girls who are trained to be nurses, carers and GPs are leaving the country because there has been an embargo in place for 12 months, since last November. The Taoiseach…

That is because we have taken them on buses.

One after the other - 165 buses and 2,000 people and nothing for us.

What did the Government do for them? It closed down the unit in Tralee. That is what it did.

I ask the Taoiseach to provide funding for the Killarney bypass. People are stalled, parked on the roads in and out of Killarney morning, noon and night. I also ask him to provide funding for the bridges on the Ring of Kerry road and Listry bridge. The road from Blackwater Bridge to Sneem has been totally and absolutely neglected. It is part of the Ring of Kerry route. It has to be funded properly. It has been neglected for 20 years.

We welcome that the Minister came to Killarney last weekend and took a few pictures. He was very selective about where he went. I was disappointed that he did not go to meet the businesspeople of the town-----

-----who are very disgruntled and out of sorts because of the Government's failure to reduce the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9%. It had all kinds of money to do just that and it would rather spend it here on bicycle sheds and huts and what have you and the children's hospital where it has no control in the world over where the money is going. There is no account whatsoever of when it will be finished. There is no accountability with the finances the Government has or where it spends them. It is unsettling and unnerving …

They are all the one now.

I welcome the chance to talk about this amendment and the USC. First, I remember this USC was introduced when the country was in a desperate state. I was brought up by my father who taught me many things, thankfully. As many Members might know, I spent my days and nights with him from the day I started working until the day he departed in 2014. We milked the cows together, drove the machines together and went to meetings in the evenings together. We went everywhere together. One of the most important things he taug…

I am being heckled here from behind. However, there is plenty of money for those who curtail their farm work of food production. These are the ridiculous things that are going on. Yet, at the same time, the parties are all the one now. It was a different situation in the past. They have sold their souls and buried them in the ground when they joined Fine Gael first of all, and when both parties joined the Greens they buried their souls deeper. They have forgotten any aspirations they had. Get a different name for t…

What I am getting at is that they promised that as soon as the country got on its feet, they would abolish the USC charge. I am asking them to stand to their word and honour what was said by the remnants of what was there at that time. They should honour the word they gave that this USC would be scrapped altogether. It is very unfair and unjust. No matter how much or little - especially how little - you earn, it is taken off the top and you are taxed on everything else then. There is a further charge with carbon ta…

What do you know? Sure you do not know whether your own son, baby is a boy or a girl.

You are telling us here then-----

Well, it is the truth. He told it loud. I did not make it up; he told it himself.

It is the truth but if it will please you, I will withdraw it. It is for the individual itself I am concerned.