Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

When the Dáil last met to debate this issue, the Labour Party made clear our position. The process around forming a government has left a lot of people scratching their heads. The Dáil is meeting again today despite no clear outcome of meetings between the two biggest parties and the Independents. There is no agreed programme for Government and no evidence of any arrangement that could bring about stability, unless, of course, after today people sit down to look again at the options. Here we are again today, and not as happy as can be. It appears that the whole process has broken down once more.

The fact is that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have the numbers. The current situation requires a clear engagement by Fianna Fáil to agree the provision of a government - perhaps that is some element of what Deputy Lisa Chambers has been saying. Instead we have continued prevarication by Fianna Fáil, for its own naked political reasons and contrary to the country's best interests when we face challenges in the future.

The current behaviour of Fianna Fáil brings to mind, as I stated last week, similar self-interested decisions taken back in the 1970s to abolish rates, which was a bad decision and which subsequently backfired.

See this speech in context