Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----which claim that nothing positive has ever happened in our country and that just demanding more of everything is the answer. Even during the pandemic, the addiction to destructive opposition showed itself repeatedly. Every measure we introduced to help workers and businesses was attacked as paltry and when we had to end emergency measures, we were attacked again. We saw another level of cynicism at the start of this debate when Sinn Féin representatives started attacking levels of welfare payments which their party had actually called for.

The waves of insincere anger and empathy we constantly hear in this Chamber are used to look for headlines while ignoring the fact that to govern is to make choices, that simply shouting more means that they are refusing to contribute anything constructive about what we should be doing. We have seen already in this debate the stark reality of the divide here between those who see problems and want to overcome them and those who see problems and just want to exploit them.

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