Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In October 2015, as the Taoiseach exhorted the people to keep the recovery going, he warned:

we are facing a fork in the road. One track points to continued stability and certainty ... along the other track lies instability and chaos.

Unfortunately, for the citizens of this State and the island, the Taoiseach stayed on the wrong track.

Good Government should be about ending the chaos in health, housing and governance. It should be about ending tax chaos, ending the chaos in the justice system and ending the chaos in industrial relations. That is what the Taoiseach should be doing. However, chaos is now the Taoiseach's middle name. The Taoiseach's ministerial colleagues have brought chaos to the Fine Gael Party. They obsess on who will lead Fine Gael and, by grace of Fianna Fáil, who will lead the Government and when. The Taoiseach's brightest and best jockey for position on WhatsApp and in the media. This is chaos, the Fine Gael way.

Little wonder that outside of the Fine Gael ranks most people do not care. What others care about is the crisis in health, the housing and homelessness emergency and the approach of Brexit. However, the Government appears oblivious to all of these as it meanders aimlessly along the wrong track.

Let us consider the case of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, the leader of the "Endadependents". If the Taoiseach were to appoint a minister with responsibility for chaos, this Minister would give Leo, Simon I, Simon II and the Taoiseach a run for their money. In September, the Minister, Deputy Ross, briefed the Cabinet on how Bus Éireann was at crisis point. Six months earlier, the National Bus and Rail Union voted in favour of precautionary industrial action amid justifiable fears for workers terms and conditions. What did the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport do? He did nothing. Last month, Bus Éireann announced proposed measures that threatened the rights of bus workers. These included cutting overtime and Sunday rates as well as pay increments. Yesterday, it was reported that the company plans to cut several routes, including the Dublin to Clonmel and Dublin to Derry services, as well as reducing frequency on several others. Of all people, the Taoiseach should know that a significant number of citizens, particularly in rural Ireland, rely on Bus Éireann services. People have the right to a public bus service. The Government's priority should be to create that service, not destroy it. I call on the Taoiseach to get off the chaos carousel, get on the right track - just for a minute - and ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, to do what he should have done months ago: engage with all the stakeholders, including the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, the NTA, Bus Éireann and the unions, to find a resolution of this issue.

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