Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It is not. Since I have made the same points on the other issues, I will not labour them. When I came in here this morning, I had no intention of calling a vote until I heard from the Chairman of the Covid committee that the Minister for Health, representatives of the HSE, the Chief Medical Officer and representatives of NPHET were not coming in. Our spokespeople were prepared for those sessions. They believed they were incredibly important because of the questions being asked. If the Taoiseach believes it is grandstanding to respond to the confusion and questions he knows are being asked, he is being dishonest with the public. The matter has nothing to do with that; it is about the fact that people are confused. If the Taoiseach wants to co-operate with the Opposition and bring the public with him, I suggest he take a different approach. That also relates to the issue of speaking order, which I will keep raising because it does not denote a Government that wants to bring this House or the public with it. The Taoiseach should think again. His backbenchers are losing any advantage they gained from his manipulation of the speaking order because they are now losing time on the Order of Business. I would think about that.

See this speech in context