Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

-----and a standing commission on taxation that will address loopholes and flaws in our tax system as they arise. We have accumulated tax losses in our system of over €15 billion, €9 billion in the financial services sector and over €400 million in the construction sector. As things stand, if the proposed sale of AIB goes ahead, that company could avoid paying any corporation tax for many years.

As already stated, we have a tired and becalmed Administration. We have a dysfunctional Department of Justice and Equality and Garda Síochána, a health service which three Fine Gael Ministers for Health, including Deputy Varadkar, have been unable to reform and a housing situation, notwithstanding the huge resources that have been put into it since 2014-2015, which is failing to produce the affordable and social housing people and families need.

One of the demands of Deputies Coveney and Varadkar during the 2011 general election campaign was a bonfire of the quangos. Unless the Taoiseach-elect creates a State authority to develop social and affordable housing, we will be faced with a 20-year housing crisis.

On the North, Brexit and the island of Ireland, we need a union of hearts and minds. We have heard here how bitter Sinn Féin and, on television, those on the Unionist side have become in recent days. It will be the privilege and responsibility of the new Taoiseach to address this and create an union of hearts and minds for all on this island.

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