Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On a personal level I congratulate the people who have been appointed as Ministers and who will receive their seals of office very shortly. Personally, I wish them well. This is a sham Administration. It is a temporary, ghost Administration, one that we know cannot and will not last.

Years ago the great John Healy, the political journalist, a predecessor of Stephen Collins and Pat Leahy, used to write repeatedly that the greatest disaster for the Irish ruling class would be if Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael ever got together, because if they got together and became bedfellows, as they are tonight, then the chance was there for other parties – parties on the left of the political spectrum – to organise in opposition and eventually to have a left majority Government. The arrangement today, with essentially a Fine Gael front with direction and operation from Fianna Fáil behind the scenes and the unfortunately pathetic Independent window-dressing Ministers, is designed to postpone the inevitable until the day when parties of the left will be strong enough to form a Government.

The Taoiseach said earlier that “politics as we knew it had changed forever”. The direct opposite is true. He spoke about 100 days of action, but he has wasted more than 70 days for two very short and generalised documents which do not indicate any dramatic new initiatives. I welcome the creation of a Department of housing in particular, and a Department of rural affairs.

As for the Department of housing, it has been clear for a long time that it is necessary to have a Department that is focused completely on housing. It was striking that the outgoing failed Minister with responsibility for housing, Deputy Alan Kelly, who did not deliver, was lecturing Members about what could be done from this point onwards. This was the Minister who had a simple task over the past two years, which was to increase the production of new houses to 2,000 units plus per month, but he simply failed to do it. He came up with all kinds of scams to ensure there would be no direct social housing and there still would be a reliance on the developers who bankrolled Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over the years. Nevertheless, it is good that there at last is to be a dedicated Department of housing. As for the Department of rural affairs, I support my rural colleagues. In areas of rural Ireland I know well, I am aware that services have fallen down or disappeared in many critical areas. It will be valuable that the new Department for general community affairs will give emphasis to this issue.

However, it must be stated that the Government already has a hackneyed appearance. It essentially comprises the same old failed Ministers coming forward here after an interregnum of three and a half months to offer Members a supposedly new and innovative Government. As Deputy Shortall has stated a number of times recently, the result of the 2016 election was that Fine Gael was defeated devastatingly and lost 25 seats, or was it 26 seats? Moreover, the Labour Party was almost obliterated. That was a rejection of those parties and all their policies. Yet, in this surreal atmosphere tonight, Members somehow are back again with the same people and policies, courtesy of the puppet masters over there on the Fianna Fáil benches. As stated previously, the reality is that this is a Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael Government for as long as it lasts. It is an acting Administration. Yesterday it was possible to discern a kind of anguish on the faces of the senior Fianna Fáil Deputies from the last Dáil, perhaps led by Deputies such as Deputy Michael McGrath. They saw themselves going into an honest arrangement, a Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil Administration, which, to be fair to the Taoiseach, he offered to Fianna Fáil, presumably with rotating Taoisigh and so on. Such Deputies saw themselves as part of that kind of Government, but instead, Fianna Fáil decided it would engage in this incredible and non-transparent arrangement whereby that party will be the directors and Fine Gael and the unfortunate Independents will be the front people.

A Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael alliance is logical. If one looks back to the collapse of the economy in 2008, I remember the then Leader of the Opposition, Deputy Enda Kenny, on the night of the blanket bank guarantee - when only the Labour Party stood aside - leading Fine Gael into the lobbies behind Fianna Fáil. He backed Fianna Fáil at every turn down to the 2011 election. In turn, Fianna Fáil then returned the favour. Throughout the lifetime of the last Dáil, Deputy Ross and I noted that on key financial measures, that party walked through the lobbies in support of Fine Gael a number of times. What I used to call the iron alliance of Irish politics in discussions within my former party - namely, that of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael on practically every county and city council in the country - is now beginning to emerge clearly here tonight as the Government. As other speakers have observed, there is no fundamental difference if one considers the range of policies on the economy and banking, as well as the disastrous performance in housing and health. Incidentally, I wonder about the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, who was such a wry observer of the Department of Health when he was the actual Minister responsible. He could appear repeatedly on the media to state such and such a thing was happening. He would note that the waiting list for ear, nose and throat services was 18 months but that it could be worked on and could be organised. Even this morning, he came out with this type of observation from outside. Will he do the same in the Department of Social Protection? Will he be telling Members how things could be organised better in respect of benefits and so on? He has been a fundamental failure in the Department he now is leaving.

8 o’clock

So Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are bedfellows at last, with Deputy Micheál Martin the chief puppeteer and these unfortunate Independents the dancing puppets in front of the Dáil. They are so-called Independents because they went out with the rest of the Independents, the rest of us, and campaigned for fundamental changes, including an end to water taxes, an emergency housing budget, an emergency house building programme and major action on health and disability. As a previous speaker said, there is a sense in which Deputy Ross and Deputy Naughten are coming home to their party tonight. They have put on those old blue shirts again and are togging out with the rest of that blueshirt Government. They are coming home, swing low sweet chariot. Those Ministers clearly show, through the front people, that this is an actual Fine Gael Government.

Deputy Finian McGrath has made a lot of promises. We remember him in Dublin North-Central as the Deputy who propped up Bertie Ahern's Government for nearly two years when there was no need because my colleague here beside me, the leader of the Green Party, Deputy Eamon Ryan, was happy to go into government to prop up Mr. Ahern and Mr. Brian Cowan for three or four years and lead the country to disaster.

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