Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle, and congratulations on your election to your new role. Like others, I wish to pay tribute to the outgoing Ceann Comhairle, Deputy Ó Fearghaíl, for his work and his commitment to the reform of procedures in the House. We look forward to working with you.

It is good to be back, and I think all of us in this Chamber share that sentiment. It is particularly good for me, as leader of the Labour Party, to lead a newly enlarged party and a group of 11-strong Labour Party TDs, all of us committed to making the changes over the course of this Dáil term that our communities so badly need. Whoever is ultimately elected Taoiseach, and there may indeed be no successful election today notwithstanding the motion from Sinn Féin, all of our energies must be focused on delivering the change our communities need. I thank all those who put their trust and faith in the Labour Party and our elected Deputies to bring about that change.

As I said, whoever is elected Taoiseach, whatever the shape of the new Government, we have to work to secure the change. It is about the communities we serve. It is about those families who are facing eviction over Christmas. We know that 4,500 children are homeless, which is shameful in a State that is running budget surpluses. It is about the families who cannot access additional needs places for their children, and we all know about that huge issue across the country. It is about the parents struggling to find childcare when their child's crèche closes. It is about young adults booking one-way tickets to Australia because they see no future for themselves here and no prospect of owning an affordable home. We owe it to communities who are suffering and who are disadvantaged by current policies. We owe it to those communities to bring about a vision of an active State that can deliver change. That is the programme we stood for as the Labour Party, and it is the programme we will be working to achieve, whether in government or in opposition, over the course of this Dáil.

We are faced with a motion on the election of a Taoiseach but whoever is elected Taoiseach, we must all work together, constructively, to achieve the change that communities need. We are all aware of the housing crisis, the civil rights issue of this generation. We are all aware of creaking public services, of healthcare delays, of chronic staffing shortages across our schools and hospitals. We are aware of the existential threat posed by climate change and the urgent actions that are necessary over the course of the next five years to tackle that. We are also aware of the terrible geopolitical events, such as the awful carnage in Gaza and the ongoing war being waged by Russia in Ukraine. We are aware of these enormous challenges and we must work constructively to address them and to serve the communities we are proud to represent.

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