Brendan Ryan (Labour)

There are two Bills to pass through this House in the next six months. The first is for electronic voting and the second is for this Fianna Fáil slush fund. The Opposition will fight every comma of these Bills. Together they epitomise what is wrong with Fianna Fáil and its majority Government which is oblivious to what anybody else thinks. Fianna Fáil believes it owns the electoral system, other people's money, Oireachtas Éireann, the State, the Civil Service and every semi-State body they will dispatch around the country. In the past, the capacity of the Opposition to shame Fianna Fáil was the only obstacle to this attitude. Now the Opposition must alert public opinion to frighten the Fianna Fáil Party as it cannot be shamed but only frightened. It lost its shame years ago.