Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to express my total confidence in Deputy Verona Murphy as Ceann Comhairle of this House. She is a woman of great vision and strength, and it is important that she be allowed to continue as the first woman to serve as Ceann Comhairle here.

People have talked about last week and the scenes that were in here in the Chamber. I am not going to repeat them. Suffice to say, the people on the ground who I represent in Galway East were totally disgusted with what was going on here. When I was elected as a TD in the last general election, I pledged that I would do my best for the people of Galway East, and also for the country.

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We have major issues in terms of housing, delivering infrastructure and disabilities in this country. I could sit on the sidelines and talk about them all day, but I decided it was best to go into government. With the Minister of State, Deputy Harkin, Michael Lowry and the other people, we formed a negotiation document for Government. We spent weeks putting it together, including Saturdays and Sundays, with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, with the purpose of forming a government in order to do what we were elected to do. I am proud to have been part of that and to be a Minister of State in this Government. I hope to deliver over the coming five years. If we do not get back to the business, with the headwinds that are coming against us from Trump and whatever else, we will end up in a sorry state. We need to unite for one thing: to protect Ireland and its economy. We need to make sure that bad politics do not take over this country. If this situation happened in a pub last week, one would say drink was involved. However, there were sober people in the Chamber, shouting, roaring and being disrespectful. It was a terrible vista for politics, and I hope to God I never see it again.

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