Derek McDowell (Labour)

It also came apart because many on the Labour Party backbenches — I was then a Labour Party backbencher in a Fianna Fáil-led Government — had formed the view that language in the mouth of the then Taoiseach no longer meant a great deal because he was quite capable of going into the Dáil day after day and saying whatever was required to keep that Government together. Frankly, the words did not mean what most people with a knowledge of the English language believed they should mean.