Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This confidence motion arises because several Opposition parties want to take down the Ceann Comhairle. She is not the issue. The problem is the Government riding roughshod over speaking time and designating the Lowry Independent group as somehow non-Government and reducing Opposition speaking time. As an Opposition TD, I have called this out on several occasions, but some want to use the Ceann Comhairle as a trophy scapegoat. The manner in which the business of the Dáil has been loudly disrupted on several occasions is regrettable and could have been done differently, and the personalised way Verona Murphy has been treated over the past two months is an embarrassment to politics. I described the abusive bullying behaviour last week as semi-feral. To be honest, I could have called it feral if it were not so orchestrated. Some TDs here should have got an Oscar for their fake outrage.

To be clear, nobody comes out of this process with dignity. It makes us all look bad. Anybody viewing this charade up in the Gallery, on television or wherever on a screen could only conclude that it is a case of clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, and here we are stuck in the middle of a housing and homelessness crisis, war in Ukraine, atrocities in Gaza, our economy at risk from US tariffs and an existential climate crisis. This is not right. We should get real.

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