Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

According to Bon Jovi's song:

The more things change the more the stay the same

... it's just reality

It's the same damn song with a different melody

That is what is happening here today. The change of Taoiseach will mean nothing for the majority of people in this country. More than that, the election of the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Varadkar, as Taoiseach will guarantee a doubling down and a continuation of the past policies.

Deputy Varadkar has been always the most ideological of the Tweedledum-Tweedledee choices we have. The Deputy notoriously targeted the so-called "welfare cheats" but, in reality, he targets the most marginalised people. At the same time, the Deputy seeks always to double down on the justification for the growing gap between wealth and poverty in this country. The Commission on Taxation recently pointed out that the direction of travel is only going in one way. The share of the wealth for the top 20% is increasing while all other groups have an increasing lower share. No doubt this trend will continue under the Taoiseach nua's watch.

Deputy Varadkar is truly a safe pair of hands for that section of Irish society and the guarantor that there will be no change in policy for the next two years. There will be no change for the hundreds of thousands of people in housing need and no change for those on the wrong side of a private-versus-public healthcare service. Oddly enough, one area where we are likely to see a change is in climate, but it will not be for the better. I say that because the change under Deputy Varadkar, with the Greens in power with him, which is an utter disaster for the environment and the climate movement, will mean the neoliberal bandwagon will ensure that climate issues will get worse and environmental disasters will widen. I say that because Deputy Varadkar will guarantee that liquefied natural gases, LNGs, will come into this country - he recently met with New Fortress Energy - data centres will flourish and targets will be missed. We can expect plenty of rhetoric around this but, like housing, we will see utter failure on delivery.

The slogan for today should be adopted from the school students' climate strike movement that we need system change, not climate change. Today, we need system change, not Taoiseach change.

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