Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On a personal level, I wish Deputy Varadkar well today, particularly as we worked together in government. While my party cannot support his election as Taoiseach on the basis of the existing programme for Government, it is a very proud day for him personally. Equally, I know it will be a very happy day for his partner, Matthew, his parents Ashok and Miriam and all his friends and family, many of whom join us for what is a momentous day in their lives. For a gay man, the son of a migrant, to be elected Taoiseach of this country is an important step. As he pointed out himself, it speaks well of this Republic. However, I think he will agree that we should not - and will not - see today as the end of the story.

While I sincerely wish him well for his time as Taoiseach, I must inform him that Labour will continue to oppose his Government. The programme for Government and the confidence-and-supply agreement that underpins it are deeply flawed documents.

At a high level they attain a wrong and short-sighted commitment to spending one third of all available funding on tax cuts at a time when public services badly need investment. The rainy day fund, as Deputy Varadkar has now publicly recognised as representing a waste of money, is an opportunity to invest in much-needed capital investment. That is what it should be utilised for.

In a range of other areas, as a policy programme, the programme for Government is clearly deficient. There is no real agenda to advance the rights of people to work, and who work, in society. There is no brave commitment to universal, high-quality public services that could be the best in the world. There is no determination to deal with challenging but important social issues from admission to schools to the repeal of the eighth amendment. As the agreements are between one party of the centre right, another party of the centre right, and a smattering of Independents, from my perspective the reasons for those deficiencies are patently obvious. If we were sceptical about the programme for Government last May, that is even more the case now. For more than a year, we have endured what is effectively a do-nothing Dáil. New politics has become a notion worthy only of scorn and ridicule. Only one piece of Opposition legislation has been enacted since this House was elected, namely, my party's Bill to give trade union rights to freelance workers. The Government has enacted fewer pieces of legislation than any preceding Government in the same period. As I have said on more than one occasion, when a Government does nothing, in reality it begins to do harm.

I hope the Minister will restart the engines of Government upon his election. However, I am afraid I do not expect much. It is a very small thing, but the decision, for example, to put the House into recess after the election of the Cabinet this evening does not bode well. I know that newly appointed Ministers need time to read themselves into their Departments, but the new Taoiseach could have taken questions tomorrow and he could have set out his own vision. Legislation could have been advanced. Private Members' Bills, which are queuing up, could have been debated tomorrow. Unfortunately, the Minister has chosen to forgo the opportunity to show from the start a new determination to change the way business has been transacted in this House for the past year.

I think it is fair to say that the Minister's own views have moderated on a range of issues over the years. We have had personal dialogues on them. I jokingly said at the end of the previous Government that perhaps one of the greatest achievements of the Labour Party was to move him towards social democracy. The young man in a hurry who enjoyed writing letters to The Irish Timeswas a decidedly right-wing chap. Even in 2011, the Minister was a different politician from the one who stands before the House today. At that time, Fine Gael policy was to address the all-encompassing economic crisis by reducing public expenditure and increasing taxation on a ratio of 3:1. We found that a very hard Fine Gael position but the Minister's position was to do it on a ratio of 4:1.

More recently, as others have mentioned, the welfare cheats campaign caused great concern to many of us on this side of the House. I hope as Taoiseach he will take a more compassionate approach to those who have least in society. It can be easy at times to make political targets of those who rely on the State. Whether as a dog whistle to a particular electoral base or as a mechanism for reducing the size and capacity of the State to intervene on behalf of the most marginalised, too often those policies are favoured by politicians of the right.

The Minister knows how to disavow from that description and characterisation of himself.

I hope his stewardship for Ireland will see these tactics abandoned by his Government. Speaking of things that should be disavowed, I note that the Minister will be supported today by Deputy Lowry. I have been informed that the Minister has spoken to Deputy Lowry on a couple of occasions in recent days. I read in this week's Tipperary Star that Deputy Lowry has claimed that in return for his support, he will have access to the office of the Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, to his officials, and to his Ministers. As Taoiseach, I hope Deputy Varadkar will put such contact to an end. He should not depend on Deputy Lowry's support.

As I have already said, the views of the Minister on a range of other issues have already begun to change. His opposition to adoption by same-sex couples and to gender recognition legislation have now, thankfully, been dropped. For those, however, who regard his election as a liberal triumph, there is, I am afraid, still much to be proved. I recall only too well the agonising debates between his party and mine over the X case legislation. At every step, the Minister wanted more checks on women. Ludicrously, at one point Fine Gael suggested that women should require six medical opinions. This view was regarded by the Labour Party as an attempt to renege on our agreed position to legislate for the X case judgment. I will credit the former Minister, James Reilly, as one of the few rational people within Fine Gael on that issue.

To give him credit, it seems that the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, favours a referendum on the eighth amendment next year. On the face of it, that is indeed welcome, but that commitment must now be tested. The Minister seeks to make a particular virtue of allowing everyone to take their own position on the issue. That is fine for as long as he remains a Minister, but as Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar will have a duty to lead, to guide the proposed solution, to advocate for it and to make sure it commands the support of the people and a majority in these Houses.

Serious change comes about because serious people lead it, and this brings me to my ultimate ask of the Minister. As Taoiseach, he cannot continue in a role of commentator. I hope he will not miss too much the proffering of pithy soundbites to Newstalk on issues of the day. We might miss those soundbites on issues such as the opening of the Garda station at Stepaside, news of which coincidentally leaked out yesterday, but he must now be willing to lead from the front. Deputy Varadkar's predecessor is not a perfect man, but he is a good man who always sought to lead from the front with humour and integrity. If Deputy Varadkar can do the same, that will be a good start. Tús maith, leath na h-oibre.

At the start of my contribution I said that I wish the Minister well. Having recovered from an appalling crisis, Ireland now stands at a moment of wonderful opportunity. Our growing prosperity could transform our society or it could be squandered in the search for electoral success. Much of that choice will be Deputy Varadkar's to make.

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