Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

They marched down the road to make their daft announcement. I was in Governments which broke up. I was a Member of a coalition Government in the 1980s with the Labour Party and Garret FitzGerald as Taoiseach. For policy reasons, the Labour Party found it could no longer continue but the issue was discussed openly among colleagues who were friendly with each other and arrangements were made for a withdrawal with the minimum of damage. Everybody was in the loop. Furthermore, when the Labour Party Deputies decided to go, they went. This crowd decided to go but stayed. One would send for security if it was a Christmas party.

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