Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Like Deputy Howlin, I had not intended to speak today, being my first day. I have listened very carefully to all the speeches made but in particular to the speeches proposing Deputies Enda Kenny and Micheál Martin for the position of Taoiseach. During those speeches people spoke about the progress that has been made over the past five years of the outgoing Government and the commitment of Deputy Micheál Martin to tackle the many crises that all Deputies know exist in our health system, housing system, child care and schools.

As I was listening to these comments, what struck me were the families that will spend tonight in emergency accommodation and the families that will become homeless tomorrow and the day after. What struck me when I listened to those words were the sick people lying on trolleys for which the numbers have increased again this year on last year as they did on the previous year. In all areas of public services we can talk about families and particularly women locked out of the workforce because of the cost of child care. We can talk about the increasing numbers of children who will go hungry because of rising child poverty rates or the still unacceptable level of young people unemployed and continuing to leave the country.

I mention these people in the context of this debate on the election of Taoiseach because these people have been left behind by the outgoing Government. They have been left behind by Deputy Enda Kenny's two-tier unfair recovery. They are also the people who were let down when Deputy Micheál Martin last sat around the Cabinet table. To reuse a theme that Deputy Burton used, these are the people her party sacrificed when it abandoned promise after promise and voted for five regressive budgets introduced under the outgoing Government.

Deputy Howlin made a very important point for all of us. I did not get elected to stand on the sidelines. I did not put my name forward and ask people to vote for me in order not to take responsibility. However, my responsibility goes beyond just the election, as Deputy Howlin says, of a stable government. It is to stand up for those people who have been left behind by the parties that formed the previous two Governments. I do not believe that a Government led by Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael is in the interests of those people who have been left behind.

Today on Kildare Street outside Leinster House there is an Oxfam campaign van calling on this Dáil to make equality its top priority. We have had 88 years of the inequality in Irish society led by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. My responsibility as a new Deputy, whether in government or in opposition, is to champion that cause of equality and challenge the policies that have generated such deep levels of inequality in order to try to make this country a better place. That is the reason that not only will I not be voting for Deputy Enda Kenny or Deputy Micheál Martin, but also the reason I will proudly vote for the president of Sinn Féin, Deputy Gerry Adams.

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