Developments in the Eurozone have been an issue in the Dáil all year and each time that there is a summit we get an opportunity to speak on the matter, before and after. Week 29 was another such occasion and this is what I said to Finance Minister Michael Noonan, “All of the summits have adhered to a trend whereby we get a great sense of optimism in the lead-up followed immediately afterwards by a degree of rallying on the markets before sober reality kicks in some days later and any gains are lost. Europe has proved unsuccessful to date in solving the main problems it faces. The Minister claimed in a radio interview last week that the euro now looks secure, that Europe will return to growth and that the threat of a recession emanating from Europe has been removed. Those claims are surely somewhat optimistic.

During Week 27 I had an opportunity to speak on different issues relating to Health Services delivery in Wexford and their impact on the community. Here is an extract from my address to the Minister for Health James Reilly, “I will start on a positive note by commending the Government on going ahead with funding for accident and emergency and maternity units in Wexford, which were much needed. For some strange reason, Wexford has been poorly treated for a long time. It has one of the highest literacy rates in the country yet it is one of the few counties without a third level education institution. At present, Wexford has one of the highest rates of unemployment, with more than 20,000 people unemployed. Even in the good days in 2007, there were 50% more Wexford people working outside the county than in it. It is welcome that Wexford is getting the much-needed hospital unit.

The long awaited Inter-Departmental Mortgage Arrears Working Group proved to be a major let down for anyone with high hopes of the Government making a serious attempt to solve a mortgage crisis that is being allowed to increasingly worsen. Given that the report was written by civil servants and bankers, maybe we shouldn’t be quite so shocked. Here is an extract from my speech in the Dáil on the subject – “I was always taught that when reading a factual book, the first thing I should do is see who wrote it, when he wrote it and in some contexts, particularly in history, where he came from and his background. When I looked at the Keane report, I was surprised that it came from people who did not have a direct relationship with the problems they addressed. That was a mistake. I am not sure if any of them is struggling to pay a mortgage; perhaps they are. However, I noticed there was no criticism of the banks’ behaviour towards the borrower, despite the fact that there is much evidence of bullying, threats and intimidation from the financial institutions in their relationship with borrowers. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that it is a pretty uneven contest between the borrower and the lender at the moment….The Government needs to connect more with civic groups in general, and not just on this issue. The Government has a responsibility to change the level of disconnection between Leinster House and the world outside…..I wish there was a closer relationship between the Government and the people when it comes to mortgages. There is more interaction between the Government and the banks than there is between the Government and the people. The mortgage crisis is getting worse at this stage, and that is not surprising as things are becoming more difficult for many people. They are falling further behind with their payments and they have a great deal of other debt. We still seem to lack a proper way of measuring that debt for some reason. We do not know what they owe, between credit cards, utility bills and so on. We probably do not realise just yet how poor many people are.

Week 25 of Dáil sittings since it began a lifetime ago in early March started with my day in the High Court with ACC on Monday, the operation on my shoulder in Beaumont on Tuesday, and back to the Dáil on Wednesday morning to challenge the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton on Ireland’s failed approach to job creation over the years. An extract from my address:

Our third week back since the recess began for me with a question to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Frances Fitzgerald, where I emphasised the need for greater State investment in early childhood care and education. “I realise that money is scarce and the Minister is constrained, but she will know that a report by the OECD in 2009 showed that we spend a lower percentage on the education of children under six than any other country in Europe. It is a fact of life that we have underestimated the importance of investment in children at the earliest stages. Even if the overall spend cannot change, we need to consider rebalancing spending with a view to greater investment in children in the early years. As the Minister admitted, all the research shows that such spending is the most productive of all. Every euro spent on children under six years of age saves the State €8 in the long term. That is dramatic. Surely it would be a great investment on the part of the State to spend more money on the early years.”

Leinster House is not the most normal of places to spend time. Coming back into the Dáil chamber after seven weeks’ recess was a bit strange, even though I would have been in the Dáil office most days during those seven weeks. I do find the work very interesting and challenging, but also very frustrating at times. Having spent most of my life working in the real world I am still a bit shocked that there is such a disconnect between the Oireachtas and the world outside the gates. So many of the TDs display a serious lack of understanding of the lives of ordinary people, and most of them don’t even have a grasp of what it’s like to try and run a small business. You can read, write, and theorise ‘til the cows come home but if you haven’t gotten your hands dirty out there then it must be difficult to come to terms with the reality of it all.

There is so much happening on a weekly basis that it is difficult to keep up to date all the time – a bit like following your tail. Aside from topics raised in the Dáil chamber there are always a lot of other things happening on a daily basis, but clearly the most effect is to be gained in the chamber itself. A good example of this is the manner in which two questions I placed were dealt with – the first was a transport question which challenged the Minister to instruct the NRA to produce more affordable improvements more evenly and fairly across the nation, the second challenged the Minister for Health about the long-term future of the 24-hour A&E unit at Wexford General Hospital. Because the transport question wasn’t read on the day in the chamber, I just got an unspecific stock answer from a civil servant, whereas the health question was dealt with by Minister James O’Reilly who has now gone on the Dáil record as committing to the 24-hour A&E. The issue of cuts to primary schools is ongoing and we continue to fight the good fight and hope that Minister Ruairi Quinn will make a socially just decision.

Not an easy week. Many people would say that I wouldn’t be content if it wasn’t complicated. I beg to differ. My financial problems with the banks have been well aired long before now – I was on Prime Time nearly three years ago explaining that I couldn’t pay the interest on development land loans and claimed that most builders were in the same boat, despite protestations to the contrary. When the government nationalised Anglo Irish Bank I challenged Finance Minister Brian Lenihan on the madness of such a move but he insisted that the majority of the main lenders in Anglo were paying their interest. It was not true. The news of ACC Bank placing a receiver against the assets mortgaged to them against money loaned broke on at lunchtime on Tuesday 24 May. Phone lines were busy – Aindréas Doyle doing most of the talking. Experience has taught me lots about the press, and how they function, I decided to give no newspaper interviews and confined myself to speaking on RTÉ’s Drivetime with Mary Wilson, RTÉ television news, South East Radio, and TV3’s Tonight with Vincent Browne. When I speak live I am in control of the message, when I speak to a journalist in the papers I lose that control. They have the opportunity to report the news in an honest fashion or they can choose to twist it to suit their own agenda. As the week progressed, the papers showed their colours. Taking their information from the Mary Wilson interview on RTE Drivetime, they reported the issue as they saw fit. Some did so accurately, others lazily, some falsely, some both. When companies refused to deliver fish and bread to the Wine Bar Restaurants and others proceeded to cut our credit terms because of lies they read in some papers, I decided to issue a press statement, which went as follows: