Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Harris has chosen a song from the 1970s as his new theme song, Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet". It is a great song, but I can think of one or two other tunes from that decade that might be more appropriate. For example, I can think of The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" from 1971. It might sum up the mood of the electorate a little better, and it does contain the closing lyric:

Meet the new boss

Same as the old boss

More seriously, on 26 March 2020, this Dáil gave a standing ovation to all the front-line workers who were risking their lives for us as Covid struck. Deputy Harris was the caretaker Minister for Health at the time. On Easter Sunday last, the Government cut the pay of public health workers, many of them nurses who had contracted Covid in those times and who have suffer to this day from the effects of long Covid. Leo Varadkar was Taoiseach on the day their pay was cut. Deputy Harris will be Taoiseach by this afternoon. Is he going to reverse that pay cut or is he going to let it stand? I put it to him that if he does decide to let it stand, he will be starting off in his new job standing over one of the most miserable actions taken by any Irish Government in recent years. I will be awaiting his response on that one later today with interest.

Deputy Harris projects himself as the great listener, but his track record of listening to trade unionists and to workers' concerns is very poor. Ambulance paramedics fighting union busting were forced into the first national ambulance strike in the history of this State on his watch as health Minister. Nurses fighting for a decent pay increase were forced into only the second national nurses' strike in the history of the State. Now, he seems to be flying kites about the possibility of delaying improvements to workers' sick leave entitlements. If he tries to do this, he will meet a storm of opposition. That is a theme I intend to return to this evening.

The country needs a general election and a radical change of direction. It is not to Deputy Harris's credit that he is choosing to deny the people a general election, nor to the credit of those Independent Deputies who are assisting him in denying it. The shortest-serving Taoiseach in the history of this State was John Bruton. He was in office for 924 days. Even if the Minister manages to stretch this out until March of next year, I think he is going to be the new holder of that record. The people will see that the new boss is the same as the old boss, and I definitely do not think they are going to be fooled again.

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