Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

No, but I have a mandate to bring forward legislative proposals. I have a mandate to table draft laws, as do the Deputies opposite. I have a mandate to debate and discuss those laws, and my mandate is perfectly valid, as is the mandate of every Member of this House. The Deputies cannot pick and choose which mandates they like. We tend not to talk about the President in this House. I will not do so or talk about the President-elect other than to wish her every health, happiness and success as she prepares to take office. The Deputies should not over-interpret results from any election. Question No. 4 is a fascinating parliamentary question in that Deputy Murphy is deciding to attach motives to the Irish people. We have not seen this since de Valera had to look into his heart to decide where the Irish people stood. Deputy Murphy is deciding what motivated people to go out and vote in the presidential election, a very brave thing to do. I am not sure it tallies with any evidence we have seen from exit polling information that was published by Ireland Thinks. If we want to talk about mandates, one of the figures we should talk about is the fact that 70% of the people of Ireland who had a right to vote either did not vote in the election or chose to spoil their vote. Let us talk about that as well. I would not get carried away in making decisions on the result of a presidential election, which was resoundingly won by President-elect Connolly, and I wish her every success. We are beginning to see that Deputy Murphy will attach to the President-elect every view of every policy he wishes. The President-elect was very clear in the election campaign: I heard her say many times that she would have no role at all in the substance of the legislation. She will have a very clear constitutional role, which she will discharge with distinction, as every President of Ireland ever has done. That is my first point.

My second is that if we are on the issue of opinion polling - Deputy Ó Laoghaire made the point that the majority of people of Ireland do not favour the change to the triple lock - I do not have the data in front of me but I do remember seeing a poll in The Irish Times that was published only a number of weeks ago that showed opposition to changing the triple lock down and support for changing it up. I think, therefore, that the Irish people are well able to differentiate between military neutrality and amending our laws as to how we dispatch and deploy our troops overseas.

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