Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

This is a proud day, personally, for the Taoiseach being re-elected, as well as a proud day for Fine Gael. I am sure it is also a proud day for those who have been appointed or reappointed to ministerial office and for those who will fill the Minister of State ranks. On a personal note, I wish them all well in the work ahead.

Days like this, however, should be a proud day for all of us. When I sat in the Chamber this morning, like everyone else I could not ignore the empty seats opposite. It represented a Government which was obviously cobbled together at the 11th hour. I have often said I feel proud to be Irish, but I do not feel proud how we govern ourselves. We are absolutely past masters at creating problems and then trying to resolve them. We need to stop doing this.

In that way I am concerned about the deals which may have been done to facilitate the formation of this minority Government. It seems like a long, expensive shopping list which may favour one constituency over another. That is not the way we should be doing things. On the face of it, the new Government is also very conservative and not reflective of the collective mandate. It will have to be rebalanced by the power that will transfer to the Dáil. This is all the more essential with the opportunities which will open up in the new reformed arrangements. We need to make these work and the Social Democrats intends to play a full role in this.

Undoubtedly, there has been an imbalance in the recovery but that imbalance has been felt in urban as well as rural areas. For example, a family with a child who has a disability that is desperately seeking services will not have felt the recovery, irrespective of where they live. The services are threadbare, and the issue is not about geography. It is about the philosophy that sees the development and delivery of good quality public services as a lower priority than cutting taxes. From what we have seen so far it is difficult to understand how there will be a fundamental shift. I ask myself if those services will be threadbare at the end of this Government's term, however long it lasts. I have no doubt that someone like Deputy Finian McGrath, for example, is very well-meaning with regard to disability services but will the money be available to create services that will deliver the kind of response that is needed?

We see a housing crisis tonight that will confine 1,800 children to emergency accommodation. Those children live within range of the M50, which demonstrates that the urban-rural narrative is not an accurate narrative. The origin of the problem is not urban versus rural. The origin of the problem is the liberal market approach that has been taken, and that liberal market approach has been on steroids in terms of how it has manifested itself in our politics in recent years.

In respect of housing, that approach has failed, and not for the first time. We have seen it failing in the 1950s in terms of the response to a big housing problem. We have seen it fail in the 1970s when there was a big housing problem because the State has to intervene, and we believe the State has to intervene.

The sole reliance on the private sector to provide housing is at the heart of that failure, and the liberal market approach to resolving this problem will continue to fail. We see a social democratic approach, which is a much more interventionist approach, as being the way forward. We need to take a different approach and move beyond the mere bricks and mortar approach to housing policy. The development of a national housing and land strategy is essential, as is the recognition that the new dominance of renting requires fresh thinking and rights and responsibilities from the perspectives of both landlord and tenant.

Housing policy, building a single-tiered national health service, ending child poverty and the development of an anti-corruption agency are key areas we have identified and communicated. While we do not see a role for ourselves in a Government dominated by a liberal market approach, we are committed to engaging in the new scenario where power will be shared with the Dáil for the first time, and we intend engaging constructively with that.

When we knocked on doors in February I was heartened by the response. I felt there was a political maturity that I had not seen previously. That political maturity is a real opportunity that requires a different response. By maturity I mean that there was an understanding of the need to build and deliver better public services, and it was well understood that those services had to be paid for.

People expressed concern for children and their families who were homeless. They were horrified that in a developing country there was not a point beyond which no one should be permitted to fall. They were ashamed, and believed that we could do better than that. They expressed real fear about the dysfunction of the heath service. Many felt they had been pushed beyond what they were able to give and expressed a real fear about making ends meet. While they were prepared to pay for the building and development of public services, they were not willing to accept how money was being wasted.

Irish Water represented everything that was wrong with the way we govern ourselves. For the first time those who had paid their taxes, many of them all their lives, stood up and said, "No. This is as far as we are prepared to go." They were angered and emboldened by the description of them as some sort of spongers.

They knew well that they did not cause the crash. We were being asked to accept the same old politics where one section of society was being asked to pull their belts so tightly that they began to suffocate while they felt that others, who were benefitting from a system designed by the Government which seemed to reward very well connected insiders such as the owners of Siteserv, were picking over their bones like vultures. If the proposed commission on Irish Water is designed with one purpose - to achieve an outcome that argues for the retention of Irish Water - it will be reacted to with understandable anger. It must not be packed with people who can only see one approach. I have heard people say on many occasions that while Fianna Fáil broke the economy, the Fine Gael-Labour Government broke society and threatened our collective spirit. We are a very resilient people and that was shown at the ballot box. Regressive budgets, targeting the poor, and a Government that produced a growing inequality were just not acceptable. One thing that we must demand from this administration and which was missing from the last administration arises from the finding of the Moriarty tribunal. If the millions of euro and the years spent on that particular tribunal are to mean anything, we must see actions arising. At the start of the last administration, the Taoiseach gave a very forceful speech that I remember quite well. I dug out a bit of it because it is worth remembering. It was sincerely meant at the time but we have to consider what happened afterwards. The Taoiseach welcomed the fact that there was a comprehensive debate happening and he said:

I am sure that Members will appreciate that I am somewhat constrained in what I can say because there are legal proceedings before the courts. A devastating critique of a powerful elite exposing a gross abuse of privilege; a rank abuse of public office and a devastating abuse of public trust is how I described the first Moriarty report when I sat in the seat currently occupied by Deputy Martin. Across Ireland, four years later, people might think, “Here we go again.” I assure them that is certainly not the case because the recent election did matter. The people’s vote did and will bring change. They were right to place their trust in a new Government. Consequently, on this final Moriarty report, they can expect anything but more of the same. I know that yet another report reeking of fanatical greed or an obsessive attachment to power and breathtaking attempts to acquire, use and access privilege is enough for the people of Ireland. In fact, it is too much.

It goes on. The Taoiseach talked about people being in very straitened times, hurting and suffering badly. They expected change and they expected the last Government to do things differently. One of the things that will have to happen is that there is some conclusion on that and the current Cregan investigation into IBRC. We cannot be dissuaded from seeking answers by veiled threats that it may cost more than intended and may take years. That cannot and should not be the case. We have to find a timely and cost-efficient way of dealing with this, otherwise what we are saying is that there are whole groups of people and whole organisations that cannot be held to account. That cannot be how we govern ourselves. I cannot accept that. It is incumbent on this Government to address these issues. One of the things we have suggested is an anti-corruption agency with the power to prosecute. We earnestly ask for it to be considered because we have to stop this round of tribunal and report and nothing evolving from it. That is the kind of old politics that has to stop. The previous Government had the largest mandate in the history of the State.

What we got as a result was a distortion of the democratic process with guillotines being used and Bills being rammed through the House without adequate scrutiny.

As the political landscape now shifts to an entirely different new way of doing politics in Ireland, it is important for us to acknowledge the opportunities that presents. For our part, the Social Democrats will work very constructively with all elected representatives in this House to achieve better outcomes for our citizens. However, it must be done in a way that opens up Government in a much more transparent way and builds confidence in politics, which has been dealt a severe blow over the past ten years. I do not think the past 70 days or today has been a particularly proud moment.

See this speech in context