Deputy Mary Lou McDonald- speech from 23 Jan 2025

If you're curious about the pressing questions shaping Ireland today, this is the video for you. You've got the gender balance wrong, you're very male, some of you are pale, but you're very, very male. I always think that politics in as much as we can, and in a representative democracy should strive to reflect and mirror the communities that we represent. I have to say as an Irish woman, leave aside that I'm a parliamentarian, I find it kind of depressing that again we see the absence of us, and I want to put that on the record. You say that you have a positive agenda for change. You say that we face historic opportunities. So you're always good at the kind of grandiose claims at the beginning of the game of politics for you. You said, I remember, I'm old enough to remember last time you told us that housing was the priority. Actually, you told us that. You said that you were going to sort out housing. That you had heard the electorate. That you recognised just how bad things were. That's what you said, and that's what you pledged. So where are we now? So many struggling to put an affordable, secure roof over their heads. Sky-high house prices. Extortionate rent. Those in need of council housing waiting years and years on waiting lists. And you preside over a shameful level of homelessness. We now have structural, ongoing, growing homelessness in Ireland at a rate that none of us would ever have imagined or dreamt of. That's your record on housing. That's what you have done. So if that was your priority, and if that was your best shot at your priority over five years, well then God help us if we see what a mediocre performance are the issues that you don't care about what that's going to look like. People can't get the health care that they need when they need it. Our hospitals and A&Es are constantly overcrowded. Hundreds of thousands languish on treatment waiting lists. The trolley crisis now is just a daily occurrence. It's mundane. It's nearly taken as read day in, day out. And it's almost impossible to get a GP or a dentist appointment. That's your record on health. Working parents fork out the equivalent of a second mortgage and childcare fees. There's a serious lack of places in the system. There's been no real demonstration of respect and advancement for early childhood educators and childcare workers. And thousands of children are on waiting lists. Stress, worry, pressure. That's your record on childcare. And households continue to struggle to make it to the end of the week. To light and heat their homes. To put food on the table with soaring grocery bills. Rip off insurance costs. Never mind the rent or the mortgage. Hard-working people see the wages go out as quickly as they come in. And sometimes more quickly. That's your record on the cost of living. All these problems, by the way, existed when you clubbed together in government in 2020. And they're still with us today. Worse than before. A testament to your collective failure. Being entrusted with ministerial office is a big responsibility. And I would genuinely wish anybody who is determined to make a real and positive difference well. However, mark this. Without a radical change of policy and approach, the cabinet that has been announced tonight will amount only to a rearranging of the deck chairs. And as this government takes office, I have no doubt that ordinary people face more of the same. For anybody who believed that the leopards had finally changed its spots, would the cynical approach to government formation taken by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and the so-called independents surely disabuse them of that notion. Instead of focusing on the challenges that face our people, you wrangled over the rotation of Taoiseach. Who gets which ministerial office? Who gets the big meeting room in Leinster House? You turned your attention, in other words, to feathering your own nests. And now it feels like a bumper season of the Late Late Show for you lot. A ministry for everyone in the audience. More super junior ministers, more junior ministers, more expenses for ministers. This smacks of entitlement. The largest ever number of ministers in the history of the state, the public, the electorate, have every right to ask, are we getting value for our money? Did anybody go to a polling station on November 29th last thinking, what Ireland really, really needs is a raft of new junior ministers and super junior ministers? No, I don't think so. Parents who can't get an assessment of needs for their child certainly didn't. Patients who can't get a hospital appointment didn't. Mothers and fathers raising children in emergency accommodation certainly didn't. Communities impacted by crime and antisocial behaviour didn't. Because we need more nurses, more therapists, more Gardaí, more teachers, more SNAs. But the needs of ordinary people, it seems, are simply an afterthought. You instead drove on to fashion a brazen, grubby deal to simply grease the wheels of power. And if the last government was formed on the back of a Micheál Martin U-turn regarding Fine Gael, this government is formed on the back of a Micheál Martin U-turn regarding Michael Lowry. We know following the Moriarty Tribunal's findings of corruption, the Taoiseach's view of Deputy Lowry was that he was unfit to hold public office. Described as a rogue politician, demands were made by you Taoiseach for him to resign his seat. But now, today, you're happy to have him as the kingmaker in the formation of your government. And the question for the Taoiseach that you have not answered is simply this. What changed? When did you stop considering Deputy Lowry to be a rogue politician? When did you go from viewing him as someone unfit to hold public office to viewing him as someone with whom you wish to form a government? I think the answer is clear. That changed when it suited you, when it suited your interests. And it demonstrates that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil will do anything, as I have said, to attain and hold on to power. Power at all costs. You prioritised doling out sweeteners to Michael Lowry's group. To satisfy the regional independence, you attempted to engineer a stroke to allow those TDs to be in government and opposition at the same time. A move that would make a mockery of this doll and undermine the integrity of this house. But we saw that off as a united opposition. And thank goodness for that. This is a government built on stroke politics. And you see in your programme for government. This is where things get interesting. And this is where the lofty rhetoric really gets tested. Because what's noteworthy is the lack of timeline, specifics and clarity. The lack of ambition too. The lack of any new ideas is mind-blowing. Your gracious failure has been in housing. A failure so profound and so deep that it affects every aspect of our society. But rather than change direction, which a rational, serious government would do, no, no, no, you seek to dress up your failure as success. Throughout 2024, Micheál Martin, Simon Harris, Tharrow O'Brien trumpeted the claim that 40,000 new houses would be built by the end of last year. And you repeated this during the election campaign. Today, the CSO full year report exposed your claim as bluff and spin. With housing completions for 2024 falling far short of your figure, missing even your original target. The fact is that less homes were built last year than the year before. So far from turning a corner, as the Taoiseach so frequently claims, you are in fact going around in circles. This programme for government guarantees that the Fianna Fáil Fine Gael housing disaster will continue, that home ownership will remain beyond the reach of working people, and that the need to ramp up the delivery of affordable housing and of council housing will remain unmet. But it is not only in housing where your poverty of ambition leaps from the page. Where is the public model of childcare that Simon Harris talked a big game on, not a whisper? Where is the delivery date for 200 euros a month childcare? The plan that we had, right, that you borrowed, but that you are not going to deliver. Where is the specific commitment to abolish the means test for carers? There are just more vague pledges to improve the lives of carers, but no specific actions. And there is nothing in this document to convince us that the scandal of children with scoliosis and spina bifida being left to wait in agony for their operations will be brought to an end. Shameful and shame on you. Irish reunification represents the greatest opportunity for the progress, prosperity and future of our country. Any government worthy of its salt would actively plan and prepare for constitutional change and for the ending of partition for a united Ireland. Your programme claims that you are committed to the unity of the Irish people. You talk about a focus on investment and reconciliation, the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, and that is all well and good. But the document contains no meaningful commitments to achieving Irish unity. There is no plan for unity. No effort to reach out to those of a different view on unity. And it dodges entirely the need for a citizens' assembly. Your programme is completely silent on how this government will prepare for Irish unity referendums, as provided for in the Good Friday Agreement. Generational change is happening in Ireland, and the day will come when people will have their say on unity. So treading water is not good enough. You need to put Irish reunification at the very heart of work for the future. For 15 months, the people of Ireland have protested in support of the people of Gaza and Palestine, stood with them as they faced genocide. They have also called on you repeatedly to sanction Israel, to pass the Occupied Territories Bill with urgency. But now, despite your previous assurances and your posturing, Micheál Martin proposes to scrap the bill, to set back the goal of ceasing trading with companies who profit from the dispossession, the apartheid and the brutal dehumanisation of the Palestinian people. I regard this as a stunning betrayal. Humanitarian aid is necessary. Reconstruction is absolutely vital. But be clear on its own, that is not enough. Israel must be held to account. There have to be consequences for the Netanyahu's regime and for their genocidal actions. And there will be, I feel certain, a united call from these benches, the opposition benches and from the Irish public, for this Irish government to do the right thing by Palestine. I have said before that elections are where Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael make their promises, and it is in government where you break them. If this document is the product of Fine Gael's supposed new energy, then I am afraid the tank is running on empty and the lights have gone out. If this document is where Fianna Fáil's moving forward together intends to bring us, then it points in the direction of continued failure. And our people deserve so much better. They are entitled to see ambition to make their lives better. Another five years of mediocrity simply won't cut it. The priorities for government must be to ensure that everybody can have a home of their own, to transform our health services, to deliver affordable childcare, to really tackle the cost of living. These things can and must be fixed. But they will only be fixed by moving beyond the broken politics that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have followed for generations. I believe the day will come when we will have a new government for working people. And that is why we will work harder than ever to represent people, to stand up for them, to fight their corner, to convince and to reassure more people that there is a better way. Yeah, yeah. Thank you, deputies. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, deputies. You now move to the Labour Party. Deputy... Thank you for watching Video Parliament Ireland. Your support keeps Irish politics transparent and accessible. Like, share, and subscribe, and let us know your thoughts in the comments. We'd love to hear from you.