Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The rules that protect those rights were deliberately, consciously and repeatedly broken by the Ceann Comhairle last week. It is her job to protect those rules and to ensure they are abided by but instead she broke them one after the other. There was the unprecedented situation of a vote being called on the Order of Business and no vote being granted. It was an incredible, unprecedented situation of the Government's own proposal for Standing Orders not actually being voted on and simply deemed passed and the agenda simply ripped up for the day, including a Government backbench First Stage Bill simply forgotten about.

The Government parties are absolutely right to draw the comparison with creeping authoritarianism internationally. It is them who are engaged in it. Why? Because it is a right wing Government without a mudguard that is preparing to ram through a series of highly unpopular measures. They are right to be afraid about the prospect of street politics because it is street politics that will ultimately beat them.

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