MESS OF GOVERNMENT MAKING! Deputy Mary Lou McDonald- speech from 26 Mar 2025

Let's dive into the discussions shaping the nation The brazen stroke engineered by the Taoiseach yesterday represents an unprecedented sabotaging of the democracy of the Dáil. This mess is entirely of the government's making and the chaos that unfolded in this chamber a response to you running roughshod over the democratic functioning of the Dáil to suit your own agenda and to protect your grubby deal with Michael Lowry. A deal so important to the self-serving political interests of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that you move heaven and earth to allow Deputy Lowry and his group of TDs to be both in government and in opposition at the same time. Of course this plan is of mutual benefit. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael seek to blunt the opposition and dodge accountability. Michael Lowry and his crew seek a way to gain political influence and high office. The nod, the wink, the stroke politics so associated with Fianna Fáil is not only back but it's the very foundation of your government. A murky deal with a man you once described as a rogue politician who you called on to resign his Dáil seat because of the findings of corruption against him now pulls the strings as kingmaker in your coalition and gives the two fingers to the opposition to democracy and to the Irish people. Yesterday, Taoiseach you took a sledgehammer to the rules and procedures of the Dáil and you were assisted in this task by the Cairn Córle. Yesterday, the person responsible for safeguarding the Dáil's democratic processes led the charge on behalf of the Government's agenda. The Cairn Córle bulldozed Dáil rules to get the Government's plan over the line to protect the very deal that put her in her position, a deal brokered by her mentor Michael Lowry, who sat smiling and giving the two fingers to the people of Ireland whilst the chaos unfolded. Count Córle, you took a wrecking ball to the Dáil procedure to facilitate this charade. You even got a thumbs up from the Government Chief Whip for all your efforts. You failed to hold a vote to agree with Dáil business when a vote was called. You dumped promised legislation. And in your rush to ram through the Government motion, you only called a vote on an amendment, not on a substantive motion, but still declared that the Government motion had been passed. This was farcical, a clear breach of Dáil rules, it was unprecedented and it was unacceptable. Your actions yesterday, Cairn Córle, were demonstrably partisan and lacked the impartiality and independence demanded of your position. So who convinced you to play your part in this disgraceful charade? Or is it simply that bias for the Government is baked into the very deal that secured your position? That is now the question. Haspán an Cairn Córle, na cwil sí, naaf clénta, naaf sblóch. Hací sí, ga dháganlá sin ríaltas kuna marth offalé Michael Lowry a chusant. Ní feidhár lehi lanúnt aráig sa fust, cací sí dol. Cairn Córle, not alone have you lost the confidence of the entire Opposition. You have in fact decimated it. And the Dáil cannot function properly whilst you remain in the Chair. Above all, the Cairn Córle must be impartial, fair and independent. And by your actions you have demonstrated that you are not. Your position is therefore untenable. So I ask you to reflect very carefully on this because you need to go. Your hand. Your hand. Your hand. Your hand. Your hand. Your hand. Your hand. Your hand. My hand. Your hand. Your hand. Your hand. My hand. I could say at the outset that before this Dáil was convened, we were told in no uncertain manner that we faced a new era of total opposition. That was the Sinn Féin promise. And as we saw when we met to fulfil our constitutional duty to appoint a government, the new model of total opposition includes making it impossible to do business unless the minority allows it. It involves refusing to respect basic rules and making extreme statements and false assertions as we have just had. Since Dáil Ayrton first met, its rules have changed hundreds of times. Many times these rules have been changed without agreement between all parties. We have regularly had votes and changes to parliamentary procedure. The concept of an opposition veto is found nowhere in the democratic world. In this case, what we have is the profoundly anti-democratic demand that non-office holders be kept quiet if they support the government. Yesterday, a number of opposition spokespeople claimed that no other country in the world would do this. It is a sad commentary on their approach that they would use such inflated language to make provably false claims. A basic review of democratic parliaments around the world shows that Ireland may in fact be the only one which refuses to allow government-supporting TDs to ask priority oral questions. To give just a few examples, in Germany all non-ministers have access to oral questions. The same is the case in France, Finland and the Netherlands. In Australia, the practice is that government MPs get to ask half of all questions to the Prime Minister. In Sweden, the Prime Minister answers oral questions on alternate months and all MPs can participate. Deputy Macdonald and Sinn Féin, you are not defending anti-democratic principle. You are promoting a destructive model of opposition, one which tries to import into this chamber the loud hailer politics of the street, which many of you prefer to doing the business of the people and respecting all mandates. We have very serious issues facing this country. Next week, tariffs will be announced on Europe. We do have a housing crisis. We have issues on disability. Yet, the number one issue for Sinn Féin, and it is what you always have done, you have brought down the Northern Ireland Assembly when it suited you in the party's self-interest on a number of occasions. Your stated objective here is to undermine this institution, to undermine the government, to reduce the government majority and to create mayhem. That is what you are about. I think anybody who uses two fingers in this House to another person is wrong. That person should apologise. That would apply to Deputy Lowry. I equally think, and you should face up and acknowledge this, that any Deputy waving cameras in the face of other deputies is wrong and was never a part and parcel of Leinster House. And equally, I would say, the intimidatory barracking of newly elected TDs, be they independent or not, simply because they support the government, is a new law that I have never witnessed before in this House. And whatever you think of Deputy Heenan or Deputy Gillian O'Toole, they are newly elected deputies, you have all of them consistently pressurised them and put them under pressure. Your declaration, your declaration of a lack of confidence in the Kiong Korla, is a further instalment in your overall strategy, declared before the Steinmethe, of total opposition. And you will do everything to undermine the institutions of this State, which you have never been very loyal to in your long history. So try as you may wish, Taoiseach, with all of the tools of deflection. There was one person on one side of the House that undermined democracy yesterday, and it was the government. You see, yes, you get to defend your rights as government. You have assembled your government between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Lowry independence, and that is your prerogative. I absolutely recognise that. But you do not get to put together the opposition. That is the point. The basic rule, and the most basic rule of the functioning of this place, is the distinction between government exercising its prerogatives and opposition holding you, yes, robustly to account. You do not like accountability, Micheál Martin? Cry me a river. Because you will be held to account. The other basic necessity is the independence and absolute impartiality of the Count Córla. Very regrettably, yesterday, that has been decimated. The Count Córla no longer enjoys the confidence of the opposition. I will ask her again to reflect on her position. And to be clear, if necessary, we will move a no-confidence motion in her. From the very get-go of this Dáil, you have made the life of the Count Córla impossible. I endeavoured to speak yesterday, and there has been very little commentary on this. But anyone who watched this on television yesterday, I endeavoured to speak yesterday for three minutes in response to you, Deputy, and your deputies in a coordinated, strategic way determined deliberately to make sure I did not get the opportunity to speak. Deputies, Doherty and Carty and so on, all around the House, all orchestrated, shout him down. Barrick, do not let him have the right to speak. That is what happened yesterday. Because, Deputy, new precedents have been set in this Dáil by your coordinated strategy. And I know what you are about. You have been at it a long time. Sinn Féin has now. Sinn Féin has been at it a long time. Your tactics are well known. But they will be met by Steele on this side of the House, because you are not going to run the House, Deputy Macdonald. And Sinn Féin will not run the House. And as far as I am concerned, I am open to working with people as I have over the last five years on an ongoing basis. But I am very clear from day one what you have been about in this Dáil, and it was manifest on day one. But new precedents have been set. I do not believe this Dáil will ever be the same again because of what has transpired over the House. It will never be the same again. Like, share, and subscribe, and let us know your thoughts in the comments. We'd love to hear from you.