Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am here to state confidence in the Tánaiste and express confidence in the Government and all of the Ministers working hard to recover our country and society during this dreadful pandemic. It is preposterous that this Parliament is spending its time today on this political stunt by Sinn Féin instead of on the major issues of the day. The Tánaiste made himself immediately available to this House. He answered every question put to him and was happy to do so, as was appropriate. Having spent time on that, causing this House to repeat the debate in this way is only play-acting. It is not serious or genuine. If it was, Sinn Féin would have put this motion down immediately. As the Taoiseach said, it is only an opportunity to get another run of publicity for the weekend.

People in here are not surprised by that, no matter the jeers and sneers pushed out for everyone around. We all see the failure to respect basic facts and the complete devotion to populist politics, which have been so destructive throughout the world. We have all seen the utter lack of restraint on a serious issue as recently as today. Those in Sinn Féin are not serious liberal democratic parliamentarians. They do not make up the responsible Opposition unlike others who have been before them and others who are here today. Those in Sinn Féin are in politics for the imagery, not the tough decision-making of senior political office and the years and yards of detail that go before it. The image-focused superficial approach to policy is exposed week after week. The Sinn Féin health spokesperson promises and extra 100 intensive care unit beds but when asked cannot tell where they should go. He says only that he will write to the HSE to tell those responsible to hurry on. The justice spokesperson used the charge last week to try to break the link between the Government pandemic plan and the Garda capacity to enforce it for its duration. The Sinn Féin party leader, after crying foul that she was not included in information on the pandemic, could not find her way to stay for the duration of a briefing provided by senior medical officials. All of this is because Sinn Féin is not concerned by detail but only by theatre. We all saw this Sinn Féin theatre in Milltown Cemetery after the funeral of Bobby Storey, which was taking place some 12 km away on the other side of town. It was not so much a funeral at that point as an opportunity for pageantry and for the big men in this House to stand up front with the big men who went before them.

We all saw the lack of concern for detail when it emerged that three Sinn Féin representatives had €10,000 resting in their accounts from the Covid support payments for over six months. They were instantly sacked when the BBC uncovered it, but what happened before that? In all seriousness, how did they not notice it? Is there so much money in Sinn Féin accounts that €10,000 here or there did not register for three separate people? Was it only three? Did others get it? It is shady.

Sinn Féin Deputies have plenty to say about everyone else. They are more than happy to create links and conspiracies that do not exist but when confronted in their own party about serious criminal acts, there is no one with anything to say on anything. Think back to all those people who saw nothing in or near a packed pub in Belfast the night Robert McCartney was brutally murdered. Think about all the smears and lies to discredit Máiría Cahill, who had the temerity and extraordinary bravery to speak out against one of Sinn Féin's elites, one of the party's untouchables. It was claimed she was mentally unstable and implied that she was promiscuous. Hate, bile and untruths were spread, all because she stood up and gave an account of her abusive experience and Sinn Féin's failure to respond to it. Sinn Féin is a party rife with the culture of cover-up but what it is covering up has had much graver consequences for the lives of people on this island.

Let us switch out the names and imagine Leo Varadkar or any other party leader in this House being happy to stand over what Sinn Féin does. It is inconceivable. Do Sinn Féin Deputies actually believe that Leo Varadkar should resign for this matter? It warrants questions in the Dáil and he has been accountable. If so, then why would Michelle O'Neill not resign or, for that matter, Deputy Mary Lou McDonald, Deputy Pearse Doherty and the others who travelled, attended and made no semblance of abiding by the rules? They did so to such an extent that there has been a police investigation into it ever since. Those in Sinn Féin are the masters of throwing stones and rockets around them but they never turn the light on themselves - we know that. The silent, polite, non-abusive, good people of Ireland who remain horrified by the actions of those in Sinn Féin know it too.

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