Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach's Government is 67 days old today and here he is asking the Dáil for the third time to approve the nomination of a Minister with responsibility for agriculture. The Government may need to come to us again next week or the week after with another new Minister, perhaps one with responsibility for foreign affairs this time. Never before in the history of the State has this happened. Never before in the history of the State has the Government been reduced to such a shambles.

As Oscar Wilde once nearly said, to lose one Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine looks like carelessness, but to lose two looks like a total and absolute omnishambles. The ruling class does much of its business by way of social networking. When the old boys' network meets on the golf course, the decisions do not go down in the minutes and members of the public are kept in the dark. When a bit of light was shone on the dinner at Clifden, what did the people see? There were Deputies, Senators, broadcasters, bankers, a commissioner and an ambassador from a dictatorship giving a collective two fingers to the Irish people.

We meet today to replace the former Minister, Deputy Dara Calleary. They say every cloud has a silver lining and if there was such a silver lining to golfgate, it was surely the anger of the people that forced the resignations. I hope that anger does not go away but rather stays so this Government can be put under pressure this autumn. This Government needs to be kept under sustained pressure, including on worker rights, among other matters. This is to ensure there is no public sector pay freeze or pay freeze for workers on the minimum wage. We must also ensure there is justice for the Debenhams workers.

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