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

I mean by way of chairing. We are discussing the Chairs of the committee. That is implicit.

That is a strange tripartite division of labour. It seems that Fine Gael will have its fingerprints all over the economic strategy and approach of this Government. That is not something I welcome. That certainly is not something that working people across this State will welcome because they all know from bitter experience what that will amount to. Whatever about the initial flurry and rhetoric about stimulus, we know ultimately who Fine Gael will protect and whose interests it will advance when things get tight, and I assure the Taoiseach it is not the working families the length and breadth of this land.

This Government co-ordination committee brings the three wise men, or otherwise, together. It strikes me that the Taoiseach has an awful lot of apparatus of government. I accept the need for expertise, but this looks clumsy. It looks like perhaps the Taoiseach's partners in government cannot accept that he is, in fact, the Head of Government and he is in charge. I say this because we need somebody to be in charge. The job of Taoiseach cannot be contracted or subdivided between different political actors. That, I say in all seriousness, is not an approach that will bring cohesion; that is an approach that will bring confusion and that, it strikes me, is born of rivalry rather than any strong co-operation. The body charged with good governance and overseeing the programme for Government is the Cabinet as a unit in a collective fashion.

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