Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I start by wishing the former Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, and the former Minister, Deputy Coveney, the very best in their future.

This will be the third Taoiseach since the Government was formed in 2020. This, in itself, shows how dysfunctional this Government has been in the past four years. This Government lacks understanding and lacks the ability or hunger to look after the ordinary people. This Government, to date, has lacked common sense. The people of this country are sick to their teeth of this Government.

The simple way to see how disconnected this Government is with most of the Opposition was in the recent referendum where people spoke emphatically, with an overwhelming majority of people rejecting Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Greens, Sinn Féin, the Labour Party and the Social Democrats' plan to remove women from the Constitution, but it is not this alone that has people angered. Look at the housing crisis, which has run out of all control, and a Government running along happy with this crisis of 14,000 homeless, many of them children. Their inaction on housing in the cities, not allowing much needed development to build up where infrastructure is already in place, sees the homeless numbers crisis getting worse by day.

In the countryside, between county development plans drawn up with a negative view of rural planning and another stumbling block of a planning regulator put in place by Government, I have seen young people coming to me weekly in high numbers who have been refused planning and have been refused a chance to get their lives off the ground. These are people who have a site from their parents, have a mortgage sorted, will not be any burden on the State but are refused for one reason or another, adding to the homeless list and the housing crisis.

The health crisis in this country is nothing short of appalling and was the cause of the previous Government collapsing while the Minister, Deputy Harris, was Minister for Health. We have close to 1 million people on waiting lists on this island. People are in dreadful pain, seeking hip or knee surgeries or cataract surgeries to save their sight. The list goes on and on. There are thousands on hospital trolleys, in some cases for days, seeking a bed but left there in pain. These are the people who got up early in the morning in this country and worked hard and are left there in their time of need.

Look at agriculture in this country, where farmers continually tell me they are being treated as environmental terrorists even though we have some of the best-run farms in this country. Will Deputy Harris, as Taoiseach, allow the Green Party continue to wreck agriculture? That is a question Deputy Harris has to answer here today. Will Deputy Harris be a change and stand up for the people of this country, what Fine Gael did at one time? They did at one time stand up for the farmers of this country but they have turned their back on them in recent years, and I am asking Deputy Harris that here today. There is a crisis on the ground, as we speak, and we are getting no assistance. No farmer is getting any assistance from Government. Farmers are suffering severe mental health with the weather the way it is at present, and I would hope Deputy Harris will announce a package this evening.

It is the same with fisheries. The Government stood idly by, year in, year out, as the only deal it got for fishermen in all those many years was a decommissioning deal to get rid of Irish trawlers in Irish waters. It is a scandalous situation.

For small businesses, the Government raised VAT from 9% to 13.5%. It is putting small businesses, such as cafés, restaurants and pubs, out of businesses and it does not care. I do not understand what kind of a government it is.

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