Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Ceann Comhairle)
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On this happy occasion I am sure I speak on behalf of all Members when I extend a warm welcome to Deputy Ruth Coppinger. I hope that your time here will be productive and happy. Today is a special occasion for you and your family and supporters, some of whom are present in the Gallery. They are also very welcome. I wish you well during your period here.

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I would like to be associated with the Ceann Comhairle's remarks of congratulation to Deputy Ruth Coppinger. I hope she has a long and distinguished career in the House.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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On behalf of my party and on my own behalf, I congratulate Deputy Ruth Coppinger on her success in the by-election and welcome her to the Chamber, which is the key national decision-making chamber in our public life. She has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to public matters and public affairs. Irrespective of our different perspectives on politics, participation in politics is fundamentally the glue that keeps us all together. I welcome the Deputy to the Chamber and look forward to many a spirited and engaging debate as matters ensue.

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Ar mo shon féin agus ar son Sinn Féin, ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an Teachta Ruth Coppinger. Le cuidiú Dé, beidh muid ábalta obair le chéile ar son mhuintir an Stáit agus an oileáin seo.

Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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I am sure the days following on will not be as serene and friendly as this moment, but sufficient for this day is the joy thereof. Ar an gcéad dul síos, céad mile buíochas do muintir Baile Átha Cliath Thiar. I express the deepest appreciation of the Socialist Party and the Anti-Austerity Alliance to the people of Dublin West for sending the former Councillor Ruth Coppinger to Dáil Éireann to represent them alongside myself. I welcome Ruth's family and supporters to the Visitors' Gallery. Her late parents would be delighted to be here as well if things had been different.

The now Deputy Coppinger has been a sterling fighter for the ordinary people of Dublin West for a very long time, leading and assisting the crucial campaigns that were necessary, for example, to defend services at Blanchardstown hospital and resist cuts to special needs assistants, campaigning with those desperately in need of homes, campaigning to resist draconian austerity taxes, campaigning with those affected by pyrite, campaigning with those afflicted by private management fees, and, today, campaigning with the Paris Bakery workers scandalously forced to occupy their premises for the unpaid wages and rights to which they are entitled.

On 23 May, the ordinary people of Ireland did not merely speak - they absolutely thundered against the injustices of the austerity burden placed upon them for six years to salvage a degenerate and socially destructive European financial market system. That burden has been borne by the child who has special needs or is acutely ill or the pensioner whose medical card has been callously removed, by low and middle-income workers and the unemployed now threatened with punitive water taxes, and by the young frog-marched into forced labour schemes or forced out of their country. These policies of austerity have been crushingly rejected. The Government is now suspended in mid-air, with no democratic legitimacy for further austerity. Like a pair of schoolyard bullies against whom the schoolyard has finally revolted, Fine Gael and Labour are left politically pummelled and punch-drunk, one sprawled senseless on the floor, the other staggering around in a daze.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)
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They are laughing at themselves.

Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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This was a referendum of the ordinary people of Ireland. The people have decided. Therefore, forthwith, restore the medical cards, abolish the water tax and build the homes that are desperately needed. By the way, what a crushing indictment it is of this Government that, in 1975, 8,794 homes were built by local authorities, whereas last year 293 were built, with 90,000 families waiting.

As the Labour Party has melted into the capitalist establishment, there is a real thirst in our country for a new political movement that is independent of that establishment. It is a genuine mass movement that represents ordinary people. This means organising to fight for real change, whereby the wealth in society is used and developed not to enrich the few, as now, but to transform the lives of our people and end the suffering of so many.

On Friday, people turned in droves from the Government. Hard questions will be asked of all those to whom they turned, including Independents and Sinn Féin, as to whether they are prepared to lead a movement to break with the disaster of capitalist economics, which has resulted in 26 million people being unemployed in Europe, and capitalist politics, or whether they will take a road that mirrors the Labour Party's unfortunate trajectory.

For Ruth Coppinger, as for myself in this assembly, the great socialist James Connolly, whose statue stands behind us, will be a constant inspiration and reminder that we are here not to serve any personal ambition but to struggle for democratic socialist change to achieve the transformation of our society in a way that can meet the needs of all our people and end the barbarities and cruelty inflicted on so many by the present system.