Dáil debates

Wednesday, 15 February 2017

Confidence in Government: Motion

 

8:25 pm

Photo of Joan BurtonJoan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It does not help this country, at a time of great difficulty, dangers and issues to be deal with, that we seem to have a Government of national confusion which technically is in charge but with very little to no authority in the Dáil and subject to endless disagreements within the Cabinet.

I heard some of the Taoiseach's interview on RTE Radio 1 on Sunday and if I heard it correctly, he said that this Government has the largest number of Fine Gael Ministers in the history of the State. By the way, the Taoiseach made one mistake. He added three additional Ministers of State when he formed his Government, and with no disrespect to the individuals who occupy those positions, it was not necessary and it does not seem to have achieved anything. Of those 33 members of Government, between Ministers of State and senior Ministers, six at senior and six at Minister of State level are non-party, Independents or the Independent Alliance.

What has that given us in terms of this debate? Where are they? They are not here. A Cabinet is about taking on difficult jobs and working in the interest of the people. In some cases they will not get through that agenda. In other cases, they will get through much of it. There is no denying it is a difficult situation but the Taoiseach is on his own tonight cutting a lonely, solitary figure as his comrades in the Government absent themselves. In fairness, the Minister of State, Deputy McGrath, was here earlier, and he was here for the debate last night as well. I understand the Minister, Deputy Zappone, is in the Seanad tonight, but this tells its own story. In a Cabinet with any kind of collective sense, some of the members who do not come from this great overweening Fine Gael majority Cabinet would be sitting beside the Taoiseach and simply going the road.

I call this a Government of national confusion. The previous Government of which I was a member faced extraordinary difficulties in terms of trying to rebuild the solvency of the State after what Fianna Fáil did to it. We came in when young graduates did not have jobs or any prospect of a job. People in rural Ireland had to emigrate or migrate away from their homes. They were incredibly difficult times for very fine people.

We now face two very serious challenges. Mr. Trump, as President of America, is a totally unknown quantity. Like something out of an Oscar Wilde play, he has already lost his director of national security. The holder of that office did not seem to know that his calls would be taped. He fired the legal officer who identified that he was a national security risk. Who knows what his petulant attitude may or may not be to Ireland? We hope it might be friendly, and Comrade Adams might be able to tell us because I think he went to functions on his behalf and was one of his supporters. Presumably, we will hear more about that as Deputy Adams scrambles to greet him, as he did with George W. Bush. That was done in the interests of political expediency so I do not want any lectures on political expediency. The Sinn Féin Members are very good at doing that. He is probably one of the most elite politicians on the face of the earth.

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