Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Simply standing to the side and hoping everything works out has not worked and will not. The Taoiseach has yet to outline how he and the Government believe the European Union should be reformed to allow it to emerge from the austere policies of the last six years. Ireland has not received full justice for its case in the Union and the Government has yet to begin articulating a demand, let alone push for it. Following agreement at the June 2012 European Council meeting, the Taoiseach and the then Tánaiste spoke about the game changer on how Irish banking debt would be dealt with, but two years later there has been no movement whatsoever. The Tánaiste's speech confirmed it was indeed Frankfurt's way, not Labour's way that was ruling the roost.

Elements in Fine Gael briefed the media earlier this week that they wanted the Ministry for education because of the threat to small schools. They did this three years after the former Minister, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, had made it clear that he saw small rural schools as inefficient and ripe for rationalisation. They did it after the campaign to close rural Garda stations and the justice system had been nearly shattered because of the decisions of the former Minister, Deputy Alan Shatter, who had refused to listen to the people's concerns.

With regard to agriculture and food and the needs of rural Ireland, rural communities need sustainability. This has to be continued through the pillars of the CAP and central Exchequer funding.

In the midst of all of the pictures and stories today about new faces, there is no commitment to a new direction. The policies that have so angered the public, the deep unfairness of most major decisions and the two-tier recovery which even today the Government has hailed as its greatest achievement still remain. All we have been offered are a few sound bites intended to resurrect the political and electoral fortunes of Fine Gael and the Labour Party but which reveal the decision to double down on the policies of the past three and a half years. There is no point in the Government talking about giving relief to hard-pressed-families when it is pushing ahead with deeply regressive and unfair water and property taxes. There is no point in talking about social housing when it is leaving in place rent allowance restrictions which are at the core of the crisis. There is no point in claiming to care about health and education when it is continuing with changes which are delivering chaos and undermining services. The Government has stated it wants this to be a ‘"reset" moment for it, but it is nothing of the sort. It is changing some of the faces, but the core strategy, the core unfairness and the core reality of spin and broken promises remain unchanged.

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