Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

At the outset of this Dáil, the Labour Party set out two criteria on which we would cast our votes for Taoiseach. One was the content of any formal programme for Government proposed and its compatibility with the principles of the Labour Party. The second was the viability of the government proposed and its capacity to deal with the issues that the country faces now and in future.

In the case of the programme for Government, when a senior Minister who is negotiating the programme for Government states nationally that a policy is not in the public interest and yet it is to be implemented, then new ground has been broken. Never in my time in the House has a government been formed on that basis. If the public interest is not the fundamental and overarching basis for all actions of a government, then it cannot and does not deserve the support of this House. Policy has to be implemented in the public interest, that is, all the public's interest. National policy on health, education, justice or any other area has to be objectively determined by what is right not by what is expedient.

Reform has been the hallmark of the past five years, with a bespoke Department with responsibility for reform. Let us consider one issue, the issue of justice - although we could take any. We have a new Garda authority now. We have two published reform plans that are root-and-branch analyses of how proper 21st century policing is to be determined. There should be some objective criterion that determines the number of gardaí rather than simply picking a number, to which I could add 1,000 while another Deputy raises me 1,000. There should be some objective criterion that determines the location of Garda stations or how resources are allocated. That is new politics but that is not what we have. We must have some objectivity in respect of how health policy, education policy, transport policy or any other policy is determined with the interests of every citizen at the core of it.

The second criterion was the stability and viability of any proposed government. We need look no further than the seats beside me to answer that question. We are likely to see a minority government dependent on Fianna Fáil with an array of Independent Deputies, whose number we do not yet know some 22 minutes before we cast our votes.

Government must be based on a common set of principles - I have always understood that - hammered out, an agreed common set of principles. More fundamentally - I have been privileged to serve in three Governments - it must be based on trust.

Does trust exist? That is the question everybody in this Chamber has to answer. Does trust exist in the arrangement now before this House? Will it be fit and able to face the issues which we will face as a country, ones that we know will arise and ones that may arise: Brexit, which will be seismic in its impact here; the future of the European Union, with new borders going up because of the migrant crisis; public sector pay policy; housing; homelessness; and health? All these things will need a united, focused and determined Government, not one which is intrinsically unstable and by definition temporary in nature.

My party, as many Members of this House are happy to acknowledge, suffered a very poor general election. The traditional view, one that I shared in the immediate aftermath of that election, is that we needed the time to recover before we faced another general election. Sometimes, however, there are worse things than a general election. Bluntly, trusting the future of our country to the sand on which the proposed arrangement for a new Government is presented to us is one of those issues and I for one have come to the view that a general election is preferable.

See this speech in context