Labhrás Ó Murchú (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Many of these people are not responsible for the position they are in. They are looking to those of us in public life whom they hold responsible. We see well educated people leaving the country in their thousands; these were the very people whom we had looked forward to being the future of this country. We look at people who have no reason to get out of bed in the morning because they are living on €200 a week. One should try living on €200 a week. There is many a person in public life having one meal in the evening for €200. These are the big issues and it is not right to try to create some type of distraction from that. It is vulgar. It is incorrect. It is not something to which we should lend our names. Therefore, we should look seriously at reform.

Are we too late for a change of direction on the part of the Government? Is there still a possibility that it will see the messages coming back in favour of reform? There is no doubt that everyone should review his or her position at a given time. Society changes, the world changes, we change and the media change. There is no doubt that we all change. We would be foolhardy to think that we are perfect. We are not perfect. There is no question of it. No group is society can claim to be perfect.

We are in favour of reform. Even at this late stage, even if the detail of reform was not available in the referendum, would it not be wonderful for the Government to state, "Maybe we got this wrong. Maybe we were precipitate. Maybe we did not give enough thought to it. Maybe the people will not like us for the way they are handling this." Would it not be great if, for once, the Government could step back, put the hand on the heart and state, "Right, we still have time to bring reform into this referendum"?