Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I note in his opening remarks the Taoiseach said that he will not let Sinn Féin cause chaos down here the way they did in the North. That is because that is his job down here. The Taoiseach and his party are overseeing the chaos in housing, health, workers' rights in the public services, abortion rights, Travellers' and refugees' rights. He will not let them oversee chaos because that is his job and he wants to do it.

I will reserve most of my criticism for Fianna Fáil, which is disgracefully propping up a Government that has repeatedly told lie after lie. When someone keeps telling lies, the brain finds it very difficult to remember what is the truth and what is the lie so they keep getting caught out. The Government has been caught out in such a disgraceful manner over a very serious claim that at the heart of the State there is something extremely rotten that is punishing Sergeant McCabe, and possibly many other gardaí, with smears about being involved in the sexual abuse of children. There is probably a pattern with regard to that, and we need to get to the heart of it.

However, as well as getting the truth for the McCabes and others, we need to call an election. Fianna Fáil is remiss and disgraceful in what it claims to be about. In reality, it is propping up the system it created over decades that at its heart is rotten and corrupt. It has been about brown envelopes, lies, the 1%, the bankers, the developers and the wealthy in this country.

What we need is for all of the Government to go. We need a general election that will allow us deliver a real left alternative. If the Government does not give the people their say in all of this it just shows the contempt in which the Government holds them. I believe the State has utter contempt for the little people. It came out very much in stark terms when the Minister, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, accused our side of the House of promoting crime by advocating non-payment of water charges. He likened people fighting water charges to the disgraceful scourge brought upon Garda McCabe and his family. How dare he. What he is really saying is he has utter contempt for the tens of thousands, in fact hundreds of thousands, of ordinary Irish people who have refused to pay water charges and marched in this country. That is what that is about. That remark has nothing to do with Deputy Ruth Coppinger, it is about the people.

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