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

I just saw "3" up there on the wall.

Is seans iontach é an chéad teacht le chéile de Dháil nua chun machnamh a dhéanamh ar láidreacht leanúnach an daonlathais in Éirinn. Is ócáid í chun buíochas a ghabháil arís leo siúd a raibh baol agus íobairt ag baint leis an éacht a rinne siad chun Dáil Éireann a chur ar bun agus a chruthú.

Ar son Pháirtí Fhianna Fáil, is mian liom aitheantas a thabhairt inniu don obair a rinne na mílte duine a d’eagraigh agus a reáchtáil an t-olltoghchán le déanaí. Níor chóir dúinn riamh talamh slán a dhéanamh de thoghchán atá saor, ionraic agus daonlathach.

At the outset, I congratulate each and every Deputy who has been elected to Dáil Éireann. It is a very difficult task to get elected and it is a credit to each and every Member, to their families, friends and supporters to have achieved this honour. I hope they all have a very enjoyable and productive five years.

As is now regularly the case, the Dáil is not in a position to nominate a Taoiseach and Government today. We are a modern European democracy with diverse representation in Parliament. It is entirely reasonable that time be taken to agree sustainable arrangements for the Government which will serve for the next five years. While we take reasonable time to move towards agreement on the composition and, more importantly, the programme of the next Government, we have a Government in place which is capable of reacting quickly if challenging events materialise. Our constitutional arrangements remain strong and, unlike in many countries, they are overwhelmingly respected. No positive purpose could be served by using today to rerun the election campaign in our speeches today.

The Fianna Fáil Party is grateful for the strengthened mandate it received in the election and the fact we are the largest party both in local government and in the Oireachtas. However, our focus today is on explaining the approach we will take to using our mandate and our priorities for the next five years. Our starting point is that we believe in the power of Irish democracy to deliver for the Irish people, and we are determined that the next five years will see sustained progress on some of the most fundamental issues which have faced us for many years.

The Thirty-fourth Dáil meets today as one of the democratic world's most enduring parliaments. This week 106 years ago, the Irish people voted in an election where they gave an overwhelming mandate to establish the First Dáil. In a campaign led by Éamon de Valera and masterfully managed by Harry Boland and Michael Collins, the republican vision for an independent and democratic Ireland won a spectacular victory. Within a decade of that victory, our country came through a period of great conflict with others and between ourselves. The unity of the First Dáil was never recaptured, but eventually all but a handful of the Members of that historic Assembly committed themselves to the common cause of making Dáil Éireann a force for delivering sustained progress for the Irish people.

It is right and proper that this is a place where our primary focus is on the urgent needs of today and the years ahead. It would be profoundly wrong and distorting for us to see our country only in terms of problems which it faces. Our country has used its independence well and achieved dramatic progress in many areas. Irish democracy has delivered many things for the Irish people, and those who dismiss this are more interested in political grandstanding than actually making a difference. However, we must go much further.

The challenge for us in this Dáil is to both protect what has been achieved and deliver sustained progress on critical issues. We must show urgency and ambition. We must use our mandates constructively and with good faith. We must also understand the gravity of the challenges faced by democracies and trading economies, and the fact that Ireland can take nothing for granted. We believe that when confronted with many different options during the election, the majority of the Irish people supported a progressive and centrist vision of action for the next five years. More radical approaches of demanding a total change in nearly every area of Government policy came nowhere near gaining enough support to claim a mandate for government.

Since the election we have been engaging in good-faith discussions with others in this House who we believe to share at a minimum a commitment to various core values. We are progressing fully in line with the approach which we detailed during the election and which was subject to countless questions during interviews and debates. We believe it is impossible to build or maintain trust if every discussion and every proposal is followed by instant briefing and spinning. Therefore, we have not been providing a daily commentary on discussions and we will not be doing so as they move forward.

However, I will outline today certain core priorities which are defining our approach to discussions on Government formation. The new Government must be founded on a clear programme of action as well as clear principles about how it will work. Respect and good faith in dealings with each other, agreement to focus on the full term rather than on a day-to-day or week-to-week politics and a shared commitment to action across government are fundamental points for us.

So, too, is the fact that the Government be willing to work to protect the core pro-enterprise, pro-investment, pro-balanced growth economic model on which hundreds of thousands of jobs rely, and which funds our public services. The core economic projections from all forecasters, both domestic and international, are currently saying that Ireland has enduring strengths and should, if it maintains its current core economic policies, continue to see growth, rising living standards and rising Government income. This is a reasonable basis for developing a programme for the next five years but all must understand that we may also face a period of real uncertainty in the international economy. Within weeks of the first meeting of the Thirty-third Dáil, we were faced with an historic public health emergency and the fastest moving recession recorded outside of wartime. Strengthening economic resilience is not an option; it is an imperative.

We also have to address structural issues that lead to many processes being unreasonably long and costly. This week we are again seeing how critical reliable supply chains are for Ireland. We have to invest in them and we have to invest in modernising both our electricity grid and making our energy supplies more secure, sustainable and lower cost. That is why a commitment to accelerating critical public infrastructure is a priority for my party.

We also believe that we must all understand that free democracies are under pressure throughout the world. Ireland has to play its part in standing with other democracies and, in particular, in standing with other members of the European Union in solidarity and with a common purpose to protect and strengthen our Union. The corrosive Euroscepticism which has caused so much harm elsewhere must be rejected and the new Government must be clear from its first day that it will be Euro-positive and Euro-constructive. In particular, we need to move quickly to prepare for the Irish Presidency of the Council, which will start in 18 months' time. Given the seriousness of the issues facing the Union, we must be ready to show sustained leadership. The Presidency will represent a major political and administrative challenge for the new Government. It is, however, a challenge we can not only meet, but leave a lasting and positive impact on.

Obviously, in international affairs, the new Government must be willing and able to speak up and act constructively on issues of fundamental concern. Our actions in asserting support for Palestinian statehood and for the rule of law have been reasonable and proportionate. There can never be any support given to organisations, such as Hamas, which terrorise their own people and commit terrible acts but, equally, collective punishment of the Palestinian people by Israel cannot be tolerated and there has to be limits to state actions. We believe that Ireland should seek good relations with other states but must also be willing to call out violations of basic values and international humanitarian law and laws in general and this must be part of the new Government's agreed approach.

We must be willing to recognise and respond to clear and immediate threats to us. We need a more systematic approach to national security issues and we need further sustained investment in Óglaigh na hÉireann. For the first time since 2017, the numbers in our Defence Forces have grown during this year in net terms. My party believes that we have to build on this progress, expand numbers further and ensure that we have the skills, equipment and policies we need to protect ourselves against both traditional and new emerging threats.

The challenge of building a lasting peace and reconciliation on this island remains a generational challenge. We saw in the past what happened when complacency was allowed to set in and years were wasted by destructive boycotts and dwindling investment. Because of the shared island initiative, for the first time in our history there is major funding and Government support building lasting connections, for trying to overcome the economic and social damage of conflict and for sustained examination of what we share and what more we could share on this island. In every possible way, action is speaking louder than words. We now need to further accelerate the work of this initiative and to deepen the scale and ambition of its work.

Housing must be a defining issue for the next Government. We have just come through a period of dramatic change in policy and also sustained action to put in place the foundations for a permanent expansion in the number of homes for purchase or rent completed each year. If ever there was an area where impact can only be measured fairly over a longer period, it is in housing. The housing starts this year are higher than expected and we need to maintain and accelerate this momentum. We need sustained investment in key housing infrastructure. We need to ramp up the work of the Land Development Agency. We need to directly support people who want to own their own home or to afford a place to rent. Clear and sustained action on housing must be central to the new Government's plan.

Protecting the health of the Irish people is, for us also, an essential part of any programme we agree. The development of specialist care services, under Stephen Donnelly, represents a lasting achievement which will always be to his credit. Reducing the cost of accessing care, expanding core capacity and creating new services are a core part of the action we want to see during the next Government and we also want to see a permanent culture change and step-change in disability services.

By various estimates, last year the total spending on disability was over €12 billion. Particularly when it comes to specialist supports being available when and where they are needed, business as usual will not ensure that children and adults receive the support they need. As Fianna Fáil made clear during the campaign, a commitment to a radical change and expansion in the availability of therapies for children with special needs is a core demand of ours. At all levels and in all parts of Government, we want disability to not just receive additional funding but also to benefit from an openness to new approaches and a new urgency.

Education was one of our priority issues during the campaign and it will continue to be. The latest international reviews say that key policies in education are having a sustained and positive impact. Reading and literacy scores are rising. School completion rates are rising and very high in international terms. Higher education participation is now amongst the highest in the world, with real progress in inclusion being part of this. We have to build on this. We want to move forward with the largest programme of building and refurbishment in the history of our schools. We want to increase the teaching and financial resources available to all schools. We want to permanently improve the funding of higher education and accelerate the provision of affordable accommodation for students.

Action on climate and biodiversity must be a priority for any Government we will participate in. While there is and must be room to argue about specific policies and to propose new approaches, there is no room to challenge either the core imperative for action or the overriding importance of meeting our targets. Particularly given the scale of Ireland's population growth in the past 30 years, it is an enormous challenge but the recent 7% drop in carbon emissions is a sign of real progress. The new Government must work harder to deliver progress on reducing carbon emissions and protecting our biodiversity and it must do so while delivering direct aid and benefits to people.

The new Government will continue to face both a challenging international situation and a range of both urgent and complex issues. It cannot be complacent and it must be built on foundations which can last the full term. Lasting a full term is not about how long you can hold power; it is about the fact that we do not need a short-term approach to long-term challenges. We need an understanding that delivering real progress does not come through loud speeches; it comes through the much harder work of developing, negotiating, implementing and revising action. It requires clear agreements on policies and an unshakeable commitment to constructively working together, not only on behalf of ourselves and our parties but, more important, on behalf of the Irish people as a whole.

The late Governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, in what has become one of the most widely quoted political statements of our time, once said, "You campaign in poetry; you govern in prose". I am not sure that there was that much poetry during the recent campaign but he was surely right in the core point that when in government, the substance of delivering for the people requires a focus and directness all too often missing in campaigns.

Sa Dáil nua seo, beidh ról lárnach ag an obair a dhéanfar chun todhchaí na tíre seo a threorú. Is léir go bhfuil orainn dul i ngleic le cúrsaí sóisialta, geilleagrach, cultúrtha agus timpeallachta agus le cúrsaí a bhaineann le daonlathas. Agus sinn i mbun idirbheartaíochta chun rialtas nua a chur ar bun don téarma Dála seo leis an mandáid atá againn in úsáid mar Bhaill den Teach seo, beidh Fianna Fáil ag caint le dea-thoil agus meas.

5 o’clock

Beidh plé agus cainteanna bunaithe ar an bhforógra toghcháin a bhí againn agus sinn dílis i gcónaí do na luachanna daonlathacha poblachtacha ar a raibh Dáil Éireann bunaithe beagnach 106 bliain ó shin.

Guím Nollaig faoi shuaimhneas agus faoi thaitneamh ar gach aon duine sa Teach seo, ar fhoireann an Tí go háirithe, a d'oibrigh go dian dícheallach ar ár son i rith na bliana seo caite. Nollaig shona agus faoi mhaise daoibh go léir.

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