That is not good enough.

We are talking about something I am very passionate about myself, being a soccer fan since I was four or five years of age. I have the luck or misfortune, whichever way you look at it, of following Arsenal Football Club.

It started when Liam Brady, David O'Leary, Frank Stapleton and Pat Jennings played there. There were I think seven Irishmen playing with at the time so it was like watching Ireland play instead of watching Arsenal play. We are suffering at the moment but I think we are holding out Sporting CP at the moment. It is 0-0 and we are 1-0 up on aggregate so it looks like we are heading to a semi-final, but at the same time, we were suffering a bit the previous weekend. I listened to a lot of the debate. As I have said, I …

Eighteen days ago the Irish Haulage Farming Construction Contractors Amalgamation, IHFCCA, wrote to the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and every Minister in this country outlining the crisis that we had and asking them to speak with it. The Government refused to speak with it. A few days later Independent Ireland asked to reconvene the Dáil and the Taoiseach refused to speak with us. Now the Taoiseach is here today saying he will not take Taoiseach's questions or Questions on Policy or Legislation. What is wrong?

What is the silence about this? It is time to speak out and give us our opportunity to ask questions about the disgrace that went on in the past week.

The Minister of State is finished as an Independent.

Game over.

Hear, hear.

In the ten years since I came into the Dáil, I have never seen such a shambolic disgrace of a Government across the way. Its TDs should all be ashamed of themselves. Every one of them. They do not have the decency----

Do not say be saying anything to me. You ruin fisheries and you are there chanting that you are a great man-----

I gave you your time to talk and I did not interfere. I travelled the country to try to make peace-----

Sorry. I hope the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will mind the clock for me.

I never interfered when they were talking. The clock is-----

I travelled to a meeting in Portlaoise up to 20 days ago. The people there wrote to the Taoiseach. They wrote to every one of the Ministers - not just the Taoiseach, but also the Tánaiste - to try to make sure that there would be no protest, to sit down and have dialogue, and to see whether we could come to a solution for the hauliers and other sectors out there. The Government turned its back on them. We asked for a reconvening of the Dáil. It turned its back on us there, so there was no way the people of Ireland …

That is a disgrace.

We never blocked anything. Even the Minister of State cannot-----

I never blocked anything.

That is all that was needed to negotiate. You should have done the same if you were representing your people. Shame on you.

We came into the Dáil in Independent Ireland-----

Sorry. I will.