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

I begin by wishing Teachta Martin all the very best as he exits the Office of An Taoiseach and his role at Cabinet changes. I wish you and yours a very happy and peaceful Christmas. For the past two and half years, we have debated the important issues facing Ireland and our people, and I have no doubt that you will greatly miss our engagements here on a Tuesday and Wednesday. I wish you well.

In his speech, Teachta Martin argued that this Government is successful and delivering. The rest of us must live in a very different Ireland from him.

We live in Ireland where, during his time leading Government, the housing emergency has gotten worse, the crisis in health has gotten worse and households struggle to get by. He now passes the baton to Deputy Varadkar at a time where more than 11,000 of our people our homeless, including more than 3,000 children. Close to 1 million people are on treatment waiting lists. Many working families queue at food banks to get a hot meal. Surely, this cannot count as success.

The Government said that there are no easy answers. However, that is not an acceptable response to those mothers frantic because their children wait for vital surgery, essential services and assessment of needs; to families distressed because they cannot pay the latest bill, the mortgage repayment or afford the rent; or to a child growing up in a bed and breakfast or a hotel room. There are no easy answers, but there are answers. There are solutions that a Government with the right priorities would grasp with both hands, but instead this Government chose to ignore them.

The policies of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, not only over the past two and half years but since they joined together in 2016 have driven these crises. To dress up their failure as progress is to insult ordinary people who live with the consequences of those failures. Rather than being accountable and facing up to reality, they point the fingers at others. They hide behind excuses and present alibis for not getting the work done. It is a cop-out so typical of the parties which have passed power between each other for a century.

Ireland is a great country – perhaps the greatest. Our people are great people who are achieving extraordinary things everyday, sometimes against all odds. What we need now is a Government worthy of them and worthy of their hopes and ambitions.

Sinn Féin does not support the nomination of Deputy Varadkar as Taoiseach. The policies of Fine Gael have always been about ring-fencing the wealth and privilege of those at the top, pushing workers and families to the back of the queue, and the privatisation and hallowing out of public services. This has not changed under the leadership of Deputy Varadkar. Fine Gael and Deputy Varadkar have been in government now for 11 years. Fine Gael and Deputy Varadkar’s policies are writ large across the crises in housing, healthcare and the deep economic inequalities in Ireland today.

It is no coincidence that during Fine Gael’s time in power people desperately struggle to put a roof over their heads. A generation is locked out of home ownership and renters have been fleeced by extortionate rent – an 82% increase since 2012. Housing policy is written for big developers, wealthy investors and corporate landlords. Fine Gael, of course, is the party that rolled out the red carpet for the cuckoo funds and the vulture funds. It could not wait to get them in, and now look at the damage being done.

Fine Gael’s refusal to accept housing as a basic right has seen the crisis escalate to an emergency so bad that it is now spread to impact education, healthcare and our economy. It is no coincidence either that our hospitals are under unprecedented strain, with a never-ending trolley crisis, record waiting lists and a struggle to recruit and retain staff. The chickens of Fine Gael’s failure to invest in and resource our health service have come back to roost and it is patients who pay the price.

We must remember that Deputy Varadkar has been at the centre of these crises, sitting at the Cabinet table for more than a decade, contributing to these terrible decisions, and eventually ascending to the office of An Taoiseach in 2017. We should not forget that Deputy Varadkar’s last Government ran out of road because of Fine Gael’s disastrous performance in the areas of health and housing, eventually falling to the prospect of a no-confidence vote in the then Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris.

Nor should we forget that the revolving door of former Government Ministers into cushy jobs as lobbyists for banks and the insurance industry continued and thrived during Deputy Varadkar's term leading Government; from Cabinet to lobbyist in the blink of an eye.

It is no coincidence that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, is now ready to oversee the return of bumper pay to the top brass in the banks, backing the haves over the have-nots, showing up always for the insider class, looking after their friends in high places.

See this speech in context