Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is significant that we do not have a copy of the Minister of State's speech. He appears to have a detailed speech and he made a robust defence of what he is doing but we do not have a copy of it. I have less than two minutes. I looked at the facts and I prepared a speech, but I do not have time to deliver it. I am really tired of what the Taoiseach told us yesterday, which is typical of him, that we must get the country moving, as if we do not want the country to move. He also told us that we are leading to a paralysis. It sounds like the good old days are back and the Government is behind the good old days. We have learned absolutely nothing from the pandemic nor the declaration of the climate emergency and biodiversity plan. I object in the strongest possible terms to being put into a box and told that we are negative and for paralysis. We struggle every single day to use the few minutes and seconds given to us in opposition. This motion was going through without debate until we objected and then we got a miserly 55 minutes. Significantly, none of the backbenchers from the three major parties, in particular the Green Party, is to be seen here today.

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