Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are here this evening because of the culture of cronyism at the very heart of this Government. We are here because the Taoiseach refuses to do his job. He refuses to hold the Minister, Deputy Coveney, to account. The Minister sought to make up a job for a friend and former colleague and, when caught red-handed, he went about covering his tracks. He destroyed records he was obliged to keep under law and twice fed a cock-and-bull story to a committee of the Oireachtas. This is by any standard an abuse of office.

Sinn Féin was left with no option but to move a no-confidence motion. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil go to great lengths, as does the Green Party, it seems, to cast this fiasco as a non-issue. They want people to tune out and to sweep all this under the carpet. The deluded response from the Taoiseach as Leader of the Government this evening is proof positive that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have held power for far too long. The cronyism they now so loudly defend is precisely the brand of culture that has squandered the hopes of generations. It is why governments have come and gone but nothing has really changed. It is why the basics are denied still to so many: an affordable home, access to healthcare, a decent living. These failures persist not by accident but because the Government parties govern for vested interests and those at the top. Let us face it: they clubbed together to form this shambolic, out-of-touch Government because they could not countenance the idea that a new generation might get what they denied to that generation's parents and grandparents before them, that is, political change and a government that acts in the interests of citizens. They simply could not stomach that because they believe that government belongs to them and their circle. They believe that power is their right. They believe that they and only they are entitled to govern and, for them, ordinary people are to be kept outside, far away from power. This is all about power: who has it, who wields it and who has access to it. This fiasco demonstrates again that the well-connected can literally have access to the highest level of government at the touch of a button. However, those denied their rights and those campaigning for services are locked out and ignored. I refer to those who regularly stand outside the Dáil protesting just to get the ear of the Government. I mean citizens with disabilities, carers, children waiting for surgery, families in Donegal and beyond whose houses are literally crumbling around them - the list is endless. These, in my view, are the voices deserving of being heard by the Government, but the truth is that they are drowned out by the politics of cronyism.

Tá sé thar am d'athrú. Tá glúin nua ag éirí chun a mbua a bhaint amach. Diúltaíonn siad a gcoinneáil siar leis an aicme pholaitiúil atá ag iarraidh greim a choinneáil ar an am atá caillte agus ar an gcumhacht atá scaoilte.

The Ministers, Deputies Ryan and Coveney, and the Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, should not tell people this does not matter, that this is not serious and this does not affect people's lives. Tonight is about the Minister, Deputy Coveney, but it is also about their toxic culture, that culture they fester in government. It is about their rotten way of doing business that has robbed so many of a decent life, and it goes to the heart of how politics has been conducted in this State for decades. That must end here tonight because this generation wants and deserves far better. We will have an Ireland that matches the ambition of our people, an Ireland driven by equality and equality only, an Ireland where the right to a home, to healthcare and to a fair economy is the bedrock of our decent society and our brighter future.

I say to all Deputies who will line up this evening in defence of cronyism that they might delay change but they will not stop it. The days of the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael cosy club are numbered. They can have the past; that belongs to them. But the future belongs to the ordinary people of this country. A new and united Ireland is coming, and I for one look forward with hope and enthusiasm to that day when we will have a real 32-county republic and a government of change that really serves the people.

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