Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As for the housing portfolio, same old, same old. Members have listened to that rhetoric for as long as Governments of which the Taoiseach has been a member have been in office.

In terms of the portfolio of employment and social protection, the Taoiseach has set out the objective of income equalisation. I say bravo to that. I note that the issue of welfare fraud has been dropped. Is it not very odd, in the context of the Taoiseach thinking only a short time ago that it was suitable to spend €200,000 on a campaign to stamp out all this fraudulent activity, that it now does not feature as a matter of priority? That raises a question about the manner in which the Taoiseach assumed his office. It seems that he very deliberately thought it politically smart to target people who he believed to be powerless or at least very, very vulnerable. If he proposes to govern, design policy and carry himself politically on the basis of cheap shots or targeting people on the margins or anywhere else who he believes to be vulnerable, Sinn Féin, which he believes to be a threat to democracy, will stand toe-to-toe against that.

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