Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

That solution will require compromise which is the basic normal course of politics in every elected chamber in the world. There are people here who regard the very notion of having to do that sort of business as beneath them.

Even the notion of the centrality of reform is not a one-off issue. Reform is a process that will go on. Before the last Dáil assembled, I was asked by my party to put forward 140 proposals, the vast bulk of which we implemented. They were groundbreaking reforms, like the legislation to protect whistleblowing, the major expansion and empowering of the ombudsmen, the reform and repositioning of the Freedom of Information Act 2014, and much more. Those things are for another day.

Today we will vote on four nominees for Taoiseach. By common consensus, none will command a majority in this House. It then falls on all of us not to stand back but to stand forward and those who have sought and received an enhanced mandate need not to reject that mandate, but to use it to provide the stable government that this country and our people need.

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