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

This is indeed a great country. This great country of our faces real challenges and incredible opportunities. The decisions we take now directly affect our people today and for the future. I believe passionately that our prospects can be so very bright. When all is said and done, politics is about choices. Good politics is about making the right choices. Today, for the third time in four years, the Government presents its choice for Taoiseach. For the third time, the Cabinet deckchairs are being rearranged. For the third time in four years, the members of the Government are patting each other on the back and telling the people what a great job they are doing.

The narrative we hear today from the Government is a fairytale so outrageous that Hans Christian Andersen would be proud of it. For people to believe the spin from the Government benches, they would have to suspend all connection with reality and lose any memory of people's lived experiences. On the things that really matter to workers and families, the Government has comprehensively failed and no amount of bragging or bluster will disguise this fact.

We have a housing crisis, a crumbling health service and a cost-of-living crisis that pushes households to the brink. That is the reality. You will forgive us, gentlemen, if people do not buy the fiction you are spinning today, a story that dresses up failure as progress. Micheál Martin said this Government would be the one to fix housing, but it got worse. Then Leo Varadkar came along saying he would sort out housing, and it got worse again. Now we hear Simon Harris say he will fix housing once and for all.

Frankly, the people brace themselves.

So, here we go again. The Government passes the parcel with the keys to the Taoiseach's office one more time but let us be very clear about what is happening today. This is not about what is good for Ireland or good for the people; it is about what is good for the Government. It is the century-old cosy club circling the wagons once again to cling to power at all costs. The people of Ireland deserve so much better because this is a country full of talent, ideas and optimism. The people of Ireland have achieved incredible things, often against the odds. They deserve an Ireland where opportunity and prosperity are open to everyone, where everybody gets a fair go and nobody is left behind. They deserve a Government that matches this ambition.

The Government says that it wants Simon Harris to be Taoiseach but if it really believes that this Government has the support of the people then it should go before the people and get that mandate. The people must decide who leads and the Government should call a general election. That is the reality. Third time around and with the benefit of hard experience, we can state very clearly what another Fine Gael Taoiseach and the continuation of this Government means. It means the housing emergency and the scandal of homelessness will continue, as will the crisis in our hospitals, the trolley counts, and the waiting lists. It means that households will remain under huge pressure just to get by. It means more of the same. That is what Deputy Harris offers and represents - more of the same. He sat at Cabinet for eight years, presiding over the very policies that have seen a collapse in home ownership, sky-rocketing rents and our health service brought to its knees. Much has been said from the Government benches about Deputy Harris but it is interesting to note what has not been said and what has been conveniently forgotten. Not so long ago, Simon Harris was the Minister for Health. On his watch, hospital overcrowding spun out of control, the trolley crisis escalated and treatment waiting lists hit 1 million patients for the very first time. On his watch, the scandalous cost of the national children's hospital grew and grew and today, the most expensive hospital in the world has yet to open its doors and has yet to treat a single child. Perhaps those who remember Deputy Harris's term as health Minister best are the families of children with scoliosis who were promised that they would not wait longer than four months for life-changing surgery, a promise that was disgracefully broken again and again. Fianna Fáil refused to vote confidence in Simon Harris as Minister for Health in 2020. It caused an election, as I am sure everyone recalls. Today, Fianna Fáil members dutifully line up to vote him in as Taoiseach, joined at the hip by a group of Independent Deputies. Out there in the real world, the experience is that if you fail and fail again, you get your P45. However, in the world of this Government, of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party, it seems you can fail your way right to the very top.

Since Simon Harris became Fine Gael leader, he has been telling people, "We've got your back". This is said without a hint of irony and, it seems, with no idea of just how hollow it rings for the young adults forced to live in the boxroom of their parents' house into their 30s, for the mother and father at their wits' end battling for disability services or mental health care for their child, for the elderly men and women who have worked hard all of their lives only to suffer the indignity of lying on a hospital trolley for days, or for the stressed out couple watching every euro and deciding which bill to leave unpaid this month. Fine Gael has now been in power for 13 years and for all of those years, it has shown us time and again whose backs it has got. Fine Gael has the backs of the vulture funds-----

See this speech in context