Deputy Mary Lou McDonald- speech from 17 Dec 2022

Ceann Comhairle, can I begin by wishing Chuck de Micheál Martin all the very best as you exit the office of a Taoiseach and your role at Cabinet Changes, I wish you and I wish yours a very happy and a very peaceful Christmas, we have Chuck de Martin for the past two and a half years debated the important issues facing Ireland, facing our people and I have no doubt that you will greatly miss our engagements here on a Tuesday and a Wednesday, I wish you, I wish you. Well, Chuck de Martin argued in his speech that this government is successful, that this government is delivering. Well, the rest of us must live in a very different Ireland from you. We live in an Ireland where during your time leading government, the housing emergency has gotten worse, where the crisis in health has gotten worse, where households struggle to get by and you now I pass the bat on to Leo Varadkar, at a time when more than 11,000 of our people are homeless, including more than 3,000 children. Close to one million people are on treatment waiting lists, many working families queue at food banks to get a hot meal. Surely you cannot count this as success. You all say that there are no easy answers, but I do not think that is an acceptable response to those mothers frantic because their children wait and wait for vital surgery, for essential services, for assessment of needs. To families, to families, to families, to families distressed because they cannot pay the latest bill, the mortgage repayment or afford the rent. To a child growing up in a B&B or a hotel room. Yes, there are no easy answers, but there are answers. There are solutions solutions that a government with the right priorities would grasp with both hands, but instead you chose to ignore them. The policies of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, not only over the last two and a half years, but since you joined together in 2016, have driven these crises. So, to dress up your failure as progress is to insult ordinary people who live with the consequences of those failures. Rather than being accountable, rather than facing up to reality, you point the fingers at others, you hide behind excuses, you present alibis for not getting the work done. It is a cop out, gentlemen, so typical of the parties who have passed power between each other for a century. Ireland is a great country, maybe the greatest. Our people are great people, achieving extraordinary things every day, sometimes against all odds. What we need now is a government worthy of them, worthy of their hopes and worthy of their ambitions. Sinn Féin does not support the nomination of Leo Varadkar as Taoiseach. The policies of Fine Gael have always been about ring-fencing the wealth and the privilege of those at the top, pushing workers and families to the back of the queue. The privatisation and the hollowing out of public services, this has not changed under the leadership of Leo Varadkar. Fine Gael and Leo Varadkar have been in government now for 11 years. Fine Gael and Leo Varadkar's policies are writ large across the crises in housing, healthcare and the deep economic inequalities in Ireland today. It is no coincidence that during Fine Gael's time in power, people desperately struggle to put a roof over their heads. A generation is locked out of home ownership and renters have been fleeced by extortionate rent, an 82% increase since 2012. Housing policy written for big developers, for wealthy investors and corporate landlords. Fine Gael, of course, are the party that rolled out the red carpet for the cuckoo funds and the vulture funds. You could not wait to get them in. And now look at the damage being done. Fine Gael's refusal to accept housing as a basic right has seen the crisis escalate to an emergency so bad that it has now spread to impact education, healthcare and our economy. It is no coincidence either that our hospitals are under unprecedented strain with a never-ending trolley crisis, record waiting lists and a struggle to recruit and retain staff. The chickens of Fine Gael's failure to invest in and resource our health service have come back to roost and it is patients that paid the price. And we must remember that Leo Varadkar has been at the centre of these crises, sitting at the Cabinet table for over a decade, contributing to these terrible decisions and eventually ascending to the office of Antisioch in 2017. We should not forget that Leo Varadkar's last government ran out of road because of Fine Gael's disastrous performance in the areas of health and housing, eventually falling to the prospect of a no-confidence vote in Simon Harris. Nor should we forget that the revolving door of former government ministers into cushy jobs as lobbyists for banks and the insurance industry continued and thrived during Mr Varadkar's term-leading government, from Cabinet to lobbyist in the blink of an eye. And it is no coincidence that Minister Paschal Donoghue is now ready to oversee the return of bumper pay to the top brass in the banks, backing the haves over the have-nots, showing up always for the insider class, looking after their friends in high places, has always been the Fine Gael way. It is the Leo Varadkar way. It is the Leo Varadkar way. But the episode that defines Leo Varadkar's last term as Taoiseach is his leaking of a confidential government document to a friend, something that he admitted to on the floor of this stall. And while criminal proceedings were not pursued on this matter, serious questions remain. And what is really worrying is that it is still Deputy Varadkar's stated belief that he is somehow above having his actions questioned by the Standards in Public Office Commission. Leo Varadkar believes that power puts him beyond accountability. This is the view held by the man who now returns to the office of Antisic. The man who recently told young people forced away from Ireland by his policies that the grass is not always greener in other countries. The man who invited exploited renters to remember that one person's rent is another person's income. The man who advised a generation locked out of home ownership to borrow from their parents for a mortgage deposit. The bank of Mammy and Daddy. These are the views that emphasise loud and clear that Fine Gael and their friends in Fianna Fáil have been in power for far too long. They are out of touch, out of ideas and out of time. Micheál Martin has resigned as Tisic and the Government dissolved. We should now have a general election Because we need a change of Government. We face real challenges, Count Corle, but there is hope, positivity and ambition amongst our people. Ireland has big opportunities in the coming decades, the reunification of our country, the achievement of energy independence and the power of our young people. Capturing these opportunities is the key to Ireland reaching our greatest days. Days that are on the horizon, that will belong to everyone, but we will not get there with Leo Varadkar as Taoiseach. We will not get there on the watch of this government. But we can get there. With a change in leadership, with a change in direction, with a change in government, we will get there. Today Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, essentially the one party now, backed to the hilt by the Greens, cling to power. Not in a demonstration of diversity or maturity, but as a demonstration of that claustrophobic sense of entitlement that, above all else, will work might and may to keep change out and to keep others out. But make no mistake, you can't prevent the new dawn breaking. The light of a better tomorrow burns brightly and you can stand in the way of change. You can refuse to budge. You can slow it down. You can make the people wait a little longer, but you cannot and you will not stop that change. The touch paper has been lit by the hopes of a new generation. The old ways are on borrowed time. And our future will be defined by equality, prosperity, unity and opportunity for all. Building a strong, modern, vibrant, all-Ireland economy. That's a future worth fighting for. It's a future that a Sinn Féin government would work night and day to achieve for workers, for families, for communities and for Ireland.