Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This motion of confidence in the Taoiseach and the Government has been tabled in response to Sinn Féin's motion of no confidence.

I take the opportunity to nail this idea that Sinn Féin is a left-wing party. Sinn Féin is an extremist nationalist party. What extremist nationalist parties across Europe do is attach their logo to everything that is popular and reject everything that is unpopular in order to get nationalist sentiment going. When they think the bank guarantee is popular, they support that and then they pretend that they did not. They say defaulting is a good idea even though we know the devastating effect that would have had on social protection, on public service jobs and on the country in general. That is not a left-wing position.

Sinn Féin states it is in favour of a wealth tax. The property tax is a wealth tax but, of course, Sinn Féin cannot see that. Only two months ago, when Labour councillors and Green Party councillors on Dublin City Council suggested that rather than having a 15% reduction in the property tax in Dublin city they would have a 7.5% reduction and have €4 million put into homeless services, Sinn Féin councillors voted against it. When faced with either a populist decision on a real wealth tax and a populist decision of defending the homeless, they opted for the populist decision on a wealth tax. They cannot get their head around the fact that the property tax is a wealth tax and they voted to reduce it by 15%, meaning that the average €1 million home owner in Dublin city got €375 back while the homeless of Dublin did not get the €4 million that we hoped they would get.

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