Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As a young child I used to watch "The Twilight Zone" on a black and white TV in the corner of my room. Sometimes I feel that when one walks through the gates of Leinster House one is entering a twilight zone because everybody believes that Dáil reform is the number one issue. Dáil reform is important; of course it is important that we figure out how to divvy up speaking time, who chairs different committees and how we deal with x, y and z. However, of the thousands of people I met and canvassed in Donegal, not one mentioned the issue of Dáil reform. I did not hear one whisper of Dáil reform on the doorsteps in Donegal and I would say that was also the case in many other constituencies.

People were talking to me about other matters. A woman with two children wondered what she would do since she was up in court because the banks want to repossess her house. She does not know where to turn. Another mother spoke to me almost in tears. She has a child with life-limiting conditions yet she cannot get support from the HSE. She is exhausted from battling the system. I spoke to a grandmother who worked to build this country into what it is today. She talked about her disappointment after Christmas when she saw her daughter and granddaughter leaving for Australia again. Those are the issues the people of this country voted each and every one of us in here to deal with. If we want to fix Dáil reform we can do it overnight, it is simple. Let us get down to the real issues, however, and deal with the real problems we have. There was a crisis in health just before the election, but there is still a crisis in health. There is a crisis in accommodation, including housing, which is still there. There is also a crisis in homelessness. If we put names to it does it make it more real to people? If we mention the names of John Corrie and others, or the name of a woman on a trolley, will it make it real for people? We need to get real here because there is a sense of disconnect, as Deputy Tóibín mentioned. Political reform, including Dáil reform, is important so let us do it, but let us also deal with the real issues that people want us to address.

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