Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am talking about what the Taoiseach said here, in this House. As somebody who has been the victim of the most atrocious assault and slander on social media, for the Taoiseach to suggest to me that I would countenance, for one moment, other people from any party or none behaving in an inappropriate way in the course of debate to other people, I can say that I do not do that and have never done that in my political career. The Taoiseach and I have shared a constituency. He is very familiar with those subjects on which I have contributed. To throw around accusations of a general kind here is completely inappropriate and dishonours the Taoiseach's office. When one becomes Taoiseach, one is meant to meet a higher standard. The Taoiseach is clearly annoyed and irritated that something that has been, understandably for Deputy Varadkar as Taoiseach, a prize project has been subject to criticism here. I would say to the Taoiseach that he is perhaps a little too thin-skinned about that in the context of his replies. Deputies Michéal Martin, Howlin, Adams, the new leader of Sinn Féin, Deputy McDonald, and I have all asked a repeated series of questions at different stages over the last month or so to which we have not received satisfactory answers. If we received satisfactory answers, we would have stopped asking the questions. Instead, the Taoiseach's answers have become more convoluted. In fact, his answer there about departmental assistant secretaries meeting twice a week in answer to the question by Deputy Michael Moynihan sounds more like a theological answer that might come from a priest, bishop or lawyer than from a Taoiseach actually answering about the day-to-day concerns of people who are worried about the roof over their heads and the state of their health service.

The Taoiseach and his Ministers should develop a sense of proportion on this. There is a system in this country which has served us well, with direct funding from the State for political parties which allows political parties, within the rules, to spend that money on the promotion of the political purposes of their party and the promotion of their ideals. There is then Government funding and when political parties take office there are potentially great opportunities for whoever has the honour to become Taoiseach or a Minister to promote ideas in that Government. There is a strict division between party political and the Government position. The Taoiseach is honoured to be in government and needs to carry the can and take responsibility for this. What he is trying to do now is divert. I would say that references in this House to Goebbels and the propaganda unit that he had are, in my view, inappropriate and I think anyone who has been involved in that should reflect and pause because it does not help our debate. Equally, I think the Taoiseach is trying to distort what has been said. I used one term about the Taoiseach's policy.

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