Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

Like all the Members in this House, I share some concerns about the tribunals. I share concerns about the costs and the time taken. However, the reason the costs have escalated is because of the non co-operation by various Members opposite with the tribunal and the failure of the Government to limit the legal fees. The same applies to the time taken.

Like everyone in Ireland, I want to move on from this issue. I do not want to spend the first week in every Dáil session speaking about tribunals and having confidence debates. Ireland has changed phenomenally in the past 20 years and, with a few exceptions, it has changed for the better. However, there is one aspect of Ireland that has not changed and that is more or less the same, namely, our politics. There is still the same cute hoorism, the same clientelism, the same hypocrisy, the same corruption and the same favouritism that has existed for several decades.

I want to move on from this era. I want to move on from this Haughey, Lawlor, Burke and Ahern era of politics, but if the Taoiseach survives this, it makes useless all the tribunals, all the ethics Acts and everything through which we have gone for the past ten years. If the Taoiseach survives this, the message goes out to an entirely new generation of politicians that this is okay, one can get away with this, one's colleagues will back you up, the public will not vote you out, it does not matter really, and all this matter of ethics is just for show. That is why it is so important that the tribunal continues its work and that the Taoiseach should not be allowed to get away with these low standards. It is important so that we create a clean break in our society and move on to a different form of politics to reflect the modern Ireland in which we now live. We cannot move on so long as Ministers attack the tribunal and continue to support the Taoiseach. We cannot move on so long as Deputies opposite continue to defend a Taoiseach who they know to be unfit for office.

Responsibility falls particularly on the Cabinet in this matter, and particularly on the Tánaiste. The time has now come for those colleagues to put aside loyalty and planned defences and to go to the Taoiseach in the same way as Thatcher's Ministers had to go to her when she had gone too far, in the same way as former Taoiseach Haughey's Ministers had to go to him when he had gone too far and in the same way as former Taoiseach Reynold's Ministers had to go to him and state that they had crossed the line, it was too far and it was time to go.

The famous and over-quoted phrase of a man who was a member of the preceding Parliament of this, whose statue now faces Trinity College on College Green, is that all that is needed for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing. Perhaps today we are not far off that in many ways in the succeeding Parliament to that Parliament which sat in College Green. All that is needed for corruption to triumph, all that is needed for wrongdoing to prosper and all that is needed for the truth to be hidden is for the Tánaiste to do nothing.

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