Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

Today, we note the resignation of the Minister, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, as he leaves the Government to take up a senior position with the World Bank. Paschal and I have been constituency colleagues in Dublin Central for many years and I wish him, his wife and his family well. I genuinely hope that the next chapter in their lives brings them good health and much happiness.

Today, we must confront honestly the record of the Government he leaves behind, a record defined not by service or ambition but, rather, by a relentless commitment to clinging to power at all costs. This Government came into being on the back of a grubby deal with Deputy Michael Lowry and his associates, and it certainly shows. It was an arrangement that allowed them to attempt to play both Government and Opposition at the same time, if you recall. It was a deal born of desperation for office rather than dedication to the Irish people.

From its first moments in office, the rot had set in. From day one, the focus of the Taoiseach and his colleagues was on not solving problems but consolidating privilege. Its first act was the appointment of the largest number of super junior Ministers in the history of the State, with enhanced salaries, enhanced perks and enhanced comfort for themselves. They are literally tripping over each other. There is that many Ministries that it would make your head spin.

Then, of course, came the bike shed scandal, and after that, it was scandal after scandal, culminating in the deeply traumatic and, indeed, devastating scandal surrounding the failure of young Harvey Morrison Sherratt, who was left to wait and wait and suffer agony. There was no four-month timeline for him, Tánaiste. Harvey lost his young life. It is a painful reminder of the system that fails a child and not alone him, fails families and not alone his, fails communities and not alone his, and then, worst of all, fails to own up to it.

While the Government was consumed by scandals of its own making, the crises facing ordinary people were left to spiral out of control. Nowhere is this more evident than in housing. We have the worst housing crisis in the history of the State, with record homelessness, record rents and soaring house prices. Entire generations are locked out of home ownership, trapped in extortionate rent or forced abroad. Young people are told by the Government’s actions, despite all of the windy rhetoric, that in the end their future lies somewhere else.

It does not end there because this year, the Government delivered a budget of €9.4 billion and, astonishingly, it managed to leave working people worse off. That is some achievement. While people are struggling to keep the heat on, pay the rent, fill their shopping trolleys and put petrol in the car, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael chose to give a €250 million tax break to developers and a €105,000 tax break for wealthy executives but nothing for ordinary tax-paying workers. Increased tax breaks were given to landlords but renters were left out in the cold. There were no cost-of-living supports for workers, no income tax cuts for ordinary families and absolutely no relief for those under huge pressure literally just to get by. In fact, instead of helping people, the Government’s budget and decisions actively make life harder by taking away energy credits, scrapping the double child benefit payment, increasing the price of petrol and diesel, hiking student fees by €500, increasing road tolls, increasing the local property tax and enabling runaway rents to rise even further. You could not make it up.

Workers and families are being hit from all sides and the Government is the one swinging the hammer. People are now afraid to turn on their heating despite the cold. Does the Taoiseach know that?

Does he know that they dread opening their electricity bills? Does he know that food prices are now just beyond many families? Does he know that working people on decent wages are struggling too? Does he know that families have cut back on essentials? Does he know that the anxiety for them is constant? All the while, they have to listen to Government members backslapping each other, in the grip of delusion, insisting that things are fine. Things are not fine. This is not leadership; this is delusion.

The Government's ongoing attempts to undermine our position as a military neutral are both short-sighted and dangerous. Most of all, they are in defiance of the will of the Irish people. If the Government thinks I am wrong, it should put the matter to a referendum and find out.

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