Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to start by offering my personal good wishes to those who have been appointed or reappointed today to Cabinet, and of course to the incoming Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar. However, on behalf of the Labour Party, I want to say that we cannot support this Cabinet, because it is not in truth a new Cabinet and there are no new ideas.

There is no change in the policies being offered by this Government. I am personally disappointed that there is no change in the gender balance of the Cabinet. We need more women in Cabinet, especially in a year when there will be a gender equality referendum, as we on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Gender Equality have sought.

Above all else, we need real change and new vision in policies. Instead, what we heard from the incoming Taoiseach and, indeed, the new Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin, and the Minister for Environment, Climate, Communications and Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, was an acknowledgement that the Government has failed to deliver. It has failed to deliver on housing, climate and addressing the challenge and scourge of child poverty. What we have seen from the Government through the first half of its term has been no shortage of ambitions, plans and targets, but a chronic lack of delivering outcomes. Halfway through the lifetime of this Government, this coalition of convenience, what we are seeing is a Government that appears content with serving up only half measures - on housing, climate, care and work.

With today's purely cosmetic changes in Cabinet at half time, we do not see any improvement. Like the World Cup final, whether it is Argentina or France that wins tomorrow, we know the reality is there will be no change in conditions for women, LGBT people or workers in Qatar, just as there is no change in the policies being offered by this Government whether it is Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael that holds the position of rotating Taoiseach. We will continue to see missed targets on housing and climate action and, shamefully, we will continue to see far too many children continuing to live in poverty or to be homeless, and this despite budget surpluses.

The Taoiseach's commitment to a new unit for child poverty will be meaningless unless there are adequate resources deployed and the sort of mobilisation of State capacity we saw during Covid to tackle the scourge of poverty among children and the scourge of homelessness. We need more State action and urgent intervention to address the real and glaring problems with the childcare and early years education system. We need delivery of the promised reduction in fees for parents and a genuinely universal and publicly funded childcare system. We need the roll-out of free general practitioner, GP, care from the Department of Health, particularly for children, and we need the scandal of children with disabilities waiting long months and years for assessments to be given the attention it deserves.

On climate, despite the fine rhetoric of the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, what we see is a pattern of missed targets and delays, most recently in the publication of the climate action plan. It is still promised for next week but that will be after the Dáil has risen and we will no longer have the opportunity to hold the Minister to account on Ireland's missed targets on emissions. Across all Departments, what we need put in place are political structures to enable the repurposing of many large vacant buildings across the State to accommodate those fleeing war in Ukraine and elsewhere, rather than simply leaving this challenge to be addressed by the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman.

I hope the Taoiseach will continue the positive work of the shared island unit. The restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the resolution of the protocol will continue to be key priorities for all of us across the House as we mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. I know all parties will work together in that regard.

On the Government side, however, we are not seeing sufficient new vision and change to address the serious crises in and failures to deliver on housing, care, climate and work that have characterised the first half of the Government's term in office. It seems that will continue to characterise Government responses to these crises through the next half of its term. Beyond the cosmetic change offered by this so-called halftime Government reshuffle, we need the sort of radical and substantial vision for change that was embodied in Tom Johnson's words more than 100 years ago when he outlined the Labour programme for an equal Republic, a Republic in which children would have an equal early years start, all children would be able to achieve their full potential, everyone would get a home and the level of care they need, and the State would step up and deliver the supports that are necessary in that social democratic and socialist vision for change, a vision that we in the Labour Party will continue to offer.

My colleague, Deputy Nash, will take our remaining time.

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