Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank all of the Deputies, parties and groups that contributed to the debate. Well, I would like to thank almost all of them. It will come as no surprise to the Government that we will not accept its amendment. It may come as a surprise, although I hope it does not, to Comrade Boyd Barrett that we will accept his group's amendments. I wish to comment on the Deputy's contribution.

12 o’clock

He spoke about the Labour Party and some in opposition showing humility as to when we got things wrong in regard to this pandemic. Everyone has got things wrong in regard to this pandemic. In the exhaustive trawl of our contributions, press statements and comments which they did in advance of this debate, surely they would have the humility to acknowledge that the Labour Party has stated categorically, unlike others, that we have got things wrong, which is why we are at this point, which led us to this motion and which led us to the position that we have to be in now, which is to suppress this virus. We have the humility to admit that and we are fully behind this motion.

When the revolution comes, and I am genuinely looking forward to the revolution coming, maybe Deputy Boyd Barrett will have the humility to understand that we are not the enemy. I doubt it. In fact, if he could see us when the revolution comes, from the very back of the battalion, he will see, as usual, that we are at the front.

What really got me in this debate today were the contributions from the Healy-Raes - both of them. I am absolutely disgusted because it hit me personally. Usually, what they say is water off a duck's back to most or all of us in this House, but they had a go, and it was “the Labour Party this”, “the Labour Party that”, “relevance this” and “relevance that”. They said we did not understand working people, and said we did not understand a carpenter coming to the house to fix a job. I am the son of a carpenter. I am not the son of Fianna Fáil privilege and millions and millions of euro. I remember, as a kid in the 1980s, having to take any work going, hanging doors in Finglas just to put a roof over our heads and food on the table. I remember that. I spent my teenage years working on sites, filling skips. Did they? Or were they driving their Mercedes into their big plant hire shops, walking past all of their machinery, worth hundreds of thousands, to count all their money, to count up all their properties?

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