Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Boyd Barrett. I have no personal animosity towards former Minister, Deputy Denis Naughten, but if what the Taoiseach has said is correct - and I have no reason to believe it is not - then his position was untenable. The fact that the former Minister had multiple private dinners with Mr. McCourt and did not disclose them to the public or this House on the many occasions he was asked about his contact with Mr. McCourt meant his position was untenable. This raises a much broader question about the relationships between the economic elite in this country and some top politicians and the ability of the former to have access to the latter. It definitely raises questions in respect of the Minister of State, Deputy Breen, whom I Taoiseach referred to as having organised the dinner. Did the Minister of State also attend the dinner with then Minister and Mr. McCourt?

The Taoiseach referred to the need to put the public interest first. Above all, this relates to the question of broadband. In order to put the public interest first in the context of the national broadband plan, we need to call a halt to the fiasco that has been this process. It has utterly failed in terms of delivering value for money and delivery of access to broadband for people in rural areas. It should have been provided as a public utility by a public body. This is the process that should now take place.

The other fiasco that should now be put out of its misery, in my opinion, is the Government. The Government now has no effective majority. If Fianna Fáil abstain, if the so-called Independents vote against the Government and if Deputy Denis Naughten comes to the Opposition side, the Government does not have a majority. We know from what happened last week in terms of the budget that the Government also has no orientation to dealing with the fundamental crisis people face, namely, that relating to housing. This is the reason it passed a landlords' budget and the reason it did effectively nothing in terms of the question of social housing. In my opinion, this Dáil should now, as quickly as is possible, pass the abortion legislation and should then be dissolved and we should have an election and let the people decide.

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