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

All of a sudden, I am transported back to 2020. The Tánaiste spoke of a balanced programme. I have to say what is manifest and obvious: you have got the gender balance wrong. You are very male. Some of you are pale but you are very, very male. In politics in a representative democracy, we should strive to reflect and mirror the communities we represent, inasmuch as we can. I have to say as an Irishwoman, leaving aside that I am a parliamentarian, I find it kind of depressing that again we see the absence of us. I want to put that on the record.

The Taoiseach said he has "a positive agenda for change" and that we face historic opportunities. He is always good at grandiose claims at the beginning of the game of politics. I am old enough to remember that last time he told us housing was the priority and that he would sort out housing, and that he had heard the electorate and recognised how bad things were. That is what he said and pledged. Where are we now? Many are struggling to put an affordable, secure roof over their heads. There are sky-high house prices and extortionate rents, and those in need of council housing are spending years and years on waiting lists. The Taoiseach presides over a shameful level of homelessness. We have structural, ongoing, growing homelessness in Ireland at a rate none of us imagined or dreamt of. That is the Government parties' record on housing. That is what they have done. If that was their priority, and that was their best shot at their priority over five years, then God help us if we see what a mediocre performance on issues they do not care about looks like.

People cannot get the healthcare they need when they need it. Our hospitals and accident and emergency departments are constantly overcrowded. Hundreds of thousands of people languish on treatment waiting lists. The trolley crisis is now a daily occurrence; it is mundane. It is taken as read, day in, day out. It is nearly impossible to get a GP or dentist appointment. That is the Government parties' record on health. Working parents fork out the equivalent of a second mortgage on childcare fees. There is a serious lack of places in the system. There has been no real demonstration of respect and advancement for early childhood educators and childcare workers, and thousands of children are on waiting lists. Stress, worry, pressure is the Government parties' record on childcare. Households continue to struggle to make it to the end of the week, light and heat their homes and put food on the table, with soaring grocery bills and rip-off insurance costs, never mind the rent or mortgage. Hard-working people see their wages go out as quickly as they come in, sometimes more quickly. That is the Government parties' record on the cost of living.

All these problems existed when Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael clubbed together in 2020 and they are still with us today, worse than before, a testament to their collective failure. Being entrusted with ministerial office is a big responsibility and I genuinely wish anybody determined to make a real and positive difference well. However, mark this: without a radical change of policy and approach, the Cabinet announced tonight will amount only to a rearranging of the deckchairs. As this Government takes office, I have no doubt ordinary people face more of the same. For anybody who believed the leopard had finally changed its spots, the cynical approach to Government formation taken by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the so-called Independents surely disabused them of that notion. Instead of focusing on the challenges facing our people, they wrangled over the rotation of Taoiseach, who got which ministerial office and who got the big meeting room in Leinster House. They turned their attention, in other words, to feathering their own nests.

Now it feels like a bumper season of "The Late Late Show" for you lot with a Ministry for everyone in the audience: more super junior Ministers, more junior Ministers, more expenses for Ministers. This smacks of entitlement. It is the largest number of junior Ministers in the history of the State. The electorate has every right to ask: "Are we getting value for our money?" Did anybody go to a polling station on 29 November last thinking what Ireland really needed was a raft of new junior and super junior Ministers? I do not think so. Parents who cannot get an assessment of need for their child certainly did not. Patients who cannot get a hospital appointment did not. Mothers and fathers raising children in emergency accommodation certainly did not. Communities impacted by crime and antisocial behaviour did not. We need more nurses, therapists, gardaí, teachers and SNAs, but the needs of ordinary people, it seems, are an afterthought. The Government instead drove on to fashion a brazen, grubby deal to grease the wheels of power. If the previous Government was formed on the back of a Micheál Martin U-turn regarding Fine Gael, this Government is formed on the back of a Micheál Martin U-turn regarding Deputy Michael Lowry.

We know, following the Moriarty tribunal's findings of corruption, the Taoiseach's view of Deputy Lowry was that he was unfit to hold public office. Described as a rogue politician, demands were made by the Taoiseach for him to resign his seat, but today he is happy to have him as the kingmaker in the formation of this Government. The question for the Taoiseach that he has not answered is simply this: what changed? When did he stop considering Deputy Lowry to be a rogue politician? When did he go from viewing him as someone unfit to hold public office to viewing him as someone with whom he wishes to form a Government? The answer is clear: that changed when it suited the Taoiseach and when it suited his interests.

This demonstrates that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil will do anything to attain and hold on to power at all costs. They prioritise doling out sweeteners to Michael Lowry's group to satisfy the Regional Independents. They attempted to engineer a stroke to allow those TDs to be in government and in opposition at the same time, a move that would make a mockery of this Dáil and undermine the integrity of this House. However, we saw that off as a united Opposition, and thank goodness for that.

This is a Government built on stroke politics as seen in its programme for Government. This is where things get interesting and where the lofty rhetoric really gets tested, because what is noteworthy is the lack of timelines, specifics and clarity, and the lack of ambition too. The lack of any new ideas is mind-blowing.

The outgoing Government's greatest failure was in housing, a failure so profound and so deep that it affects every aspect of our society. However, rather than change direction, which a rational serious government would do, it seeks to dress up your failure as success. Throughout 2020, Micheál Martin, Simon Harris and Darragh O'Brien trumpeted the claim that 40,000 new houses would be built by the end of last year, and they repeated this during the election campaign. Today's CSO full-year report exposed their claim as bluff and spin, with housing completions for 2024 falling far short of that figure, missing even the original target. The fact is that fewer homes were built last year than the year before. Far from turning a corner, as the Taoiseach so frequently claims, they are going around in circles.

The programme for Government guarantees that the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael housing disaster will continue, that home ownership will remain beyond the reach of working people and that the need to ramp up the delivery of affordable housing and of council housing will remain unmet. It is not only in housing where their poverty of ambition leaps from the page. Where is the public model of childcare that Simon Harris talked a big game on? Not a whisper. Where is the delivery date for €200 a month childcare - the plan that we had and which you borrowed but are not going to deliver? Where is the specific commitment to abolish the means test for carers? There are just more vague pledges to improve the lives of carers but no specific actions. There is nothing in this document to convince us that the scandal of children with scoliosis and spina bifida being left to wait in agony for their operations will be brought to an end, which is shameful and a shame on you.

Irish reunification represents the greatest opportunity for the progress, prosperity and future of our country. Any government worth its salt would actively plan and prepare for constitutional change, for the ending of partition and for a united Ireland. In its programme, the Government claims it is committed to the unity of the Irish people. It talks about a focus on investment, reconciliation and the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, which is all well and good. However, the document contains no meaningful commitments to achieving Irish unity. There is no plan for unity and no effort to reach out to those with a different view on unity. It dodges entirely the need for a citizens' assembly. The programme is completely silent on how this Government will prepare for Irish unity referendums as provided for in the Good Friday Agreement. Generational change is happening in Ireland. The day will come when people will have their say on unity, so treading water is not good enough. The Government needs to put Irish reunification at the very heart of its work for the future.

For 15 months, the people of Ireland have protested in support of the people of Gaza and Palestine and have stood with them as they faced genocide. They have also repeatedly called on the Government to sanction Israel and to pass the occupied territories Bill as a matter of urgency. Now, despite previous assurances and posturing, Micheál Martin proposes to scrap the Bill-----

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