Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have the floor. I am not going to be lectured on understanding workers. I do not have to put on a political costume and a caricature to pretend I am working class, like some. They do.

This is a pro-worker motion. If they read it, if they understood it, if they took one second to remove themselves from their own regressive politics, they would see that this position is about a strong public health response to get people back to work and to stay in work, to get schools open and to keep them open. That is what this is about and that is where the Opposition is at. I do not think the Government is too far away either, but we need to meet in the middle and we need to get this through. We need to keep this virus down and that is how things will be opened.

The next time we have a motion or anything else, I will happily sit down or have a Zoom call and explain to them what it stands for because they never read it. They are pursuing a narrow, regressive, conservative agenda all of the time. It lets down the people of Kerry who they profess to represent; it lets down working people. This is a pro-workers motion. Everything we have put through is pro-workers. We will work together, we will admit when we are wrong and we will move forward.

Last night’s “RTÉ Investigates” should have shown everybody where we are with this, and how desperate it is to see the work of the doctors and nurses in Tallaght Hospital, to see the work of the porters, the receptionists and everyone else in that facility and in healthcare facilities all over the country. That is why we are where we are. That is why we need to be supporting strong public health measures to protect those workers and to get workers who are currently at home on PUP, workers at home trying to educate their children with all the pressure that entails, to get all those people back to work and to get society back. I think it is what people on this side of the House want and what people on the other side of the House want. It is what the Labour Party wants. I very much doubt it is what they want.

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