Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

I oppose the nomination of Deputy Enda Kenny as Taoiseach of a Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition Government. The very first sentence of the programme for Government states that a democratic revolution took place in Ireland on 25 February. The Oxford dictionary defines "revolution" as the overthrow of a government or social order in favour of a new system. That being the case, the programme presented by Deputy Kenny is a grotesque betrayal of that revolution because it proposes, almost to the letter, to continue the reactionary programme of the old order of the late and unlamented regime of Fianna Fáil and the Green Party, a regime that was rightly reviled, rejected and sent to oblivion by the Irish people for its economic and political crimes. Given the day that is in it, I am surprised that the remnants of that Government did not return with their brows heavily stained with penitential ash to recognise the role it played.

The outgoing regime indulged the profiteering speculators-----

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