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

After a week of the Taoiseach dithering and scrambling for cover, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald has done the honourable thing. She has taken the honourable course and finally resigned as Tánaiste. We have had a week of the Taoiseach and the leader of Fianna Fáil desperately conniving to sidestep or avoid genuine accountability. Today, at last, we now have the right outcome but it should not have taken this long.

It was clear some time ago that Deputy Frances Fitzgerald had to go not for fear of an election, but because of her grave failures as the Minister for Justice and Equality. The Taoiseach failed to act decisively and to take the appropriate action. He thought that he could brazen this out and instead of acting as a Taoiseach should, he played a game of bluff and a game of political poker with his partner, Deputy Micheál Martin.

Sinn Féin moved its motion of no confidence in Deputy Frances Fitzgerald because we wanted her held to account for her failure to challenge the attempts by very powerful agencies of this State to smear and destroy Maurice McCabe. We wanted her and the system held to account for the disingenuous manoeuvrings which led to both her and the Taoiseach misleading the Dáil repeatedly. Make no mistake, if Sinn Féin had not moved its motion, the Taoiseach and the Fianna Fáil leader would have been quite happy to maintain the fiction that political accountability could be achieved in some other way. Deputy Micheál Martin was happy to maintain this fiction right up until last night when it became undeniable that the Tánaiste's position was completely untenable. It is a very alarming reflection on the Taoiseach that he continued to support this fiction up until a couple of hours ago.

There are now serious questions over the Taoiseach's judgment. It is clear that his handling of this issue turned a scandal into a political crisis and then into an absolute shambles of governance. The Taoiseach repeatedly misled the Dáil and supported a Minister who had clearly failed in her duties. The Taoiseach stood by those who had turned a blind eye to the smearing of Maurice McCabe when the Taoiseach should have held them to account. The Taoiseach put the interests of Fine Gael above all else. This was the first real test of the Taoiseach's leadership and he has failed it in a most spectacular fashion.

Let us be clear - the Tánaiste is gone but this debacle is not over, not by a long shot. For all the lip service the Taoiseach has paid to the importance of the Charleton tribunal, the Department of Justice and Equality withheld relevant documents from the tribunal. That is a breach of the law. I want to know what the Taoiseach proposes to do about that. The Taoiseach told us that the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Charles Flanagan, will apologise for not answering parliamentary questions. Will the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, who sat beside the Taoiseach and allowed him to mislead the Dáil, explain also to the House how he allowed that to happen?

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