Micheál Martin

I endeavoured to speak yesterday. There has been very little commentary on this but it will have been clear to anyone who watched this on television yesterday. I endeavoured to speak yesterday for three minutes in response to Deputy McDonald.

Her Deputies, in a co-ordinated, strategic way, determined deliberately to make sure I did not get the opportunity to speak.

Deputies Doherty and Carthy and so on were orchestrated to shout me down, barrack and not let me have the right to speak. That is what happened yesterday. New precedents have been set in this Dáil by your co-ordinated strategy.

I know what you are about. You have been at it for a long time and your tactics are well known. However, they will be met by steel on this side of the House. You are not going to run the House, Deputy McDonald, and Sinn Féin will not run the House.

I am open to working with people as I have over the past five years on an ongoing basis.

I have been very clear from day one-----

-----about what Sinn Féin has been about in this Dáil. It was manifest on day one.

New precedents have been set. I do not believe this Dáil will ever be the same again-----

-----because of what has transpired over the past few weeks. It will never be the same again.

A prearranged what?

I will say to the Deputy that the Chief Whip worked extremely hard for over 20 hours with the Whips of other parties to resolve this particular issue.

By any stretch of the imagination it is stretching credibility to suggest that the resolution put forward by the Chief Whip in any way confers Opposition status on other TDs. I outlined that earlier when I reminded Deputy McDonald that in other parliaments it is a matter of form and norm that non-government deputies and government deputies who are not officeholders get to ask questions. The Deputy…

I remember reading the Irish Independent some time ago. Let us be honest - the only group of people who wanted to help to facilitate a Government was the regional Independents.

The headline in the newspaper read: 'We'll meet big three, but with no intention of going into government' - Ivana Bacik rules Labour out of coalition. According to the article, it is recorded in the minutes of the Labour Party's national executive that they "will meet the big three as a courtesy, but with no intention of going into government".

That is the reality facing the Dáil.

The Labour Party had no sincerity about going into government, and neither did the Social Democrats. The Regional Independent Group wanted a Government formed. That is the bottom line here. There is an obligation to form a Government. Now, may I say-----

-----just because people keep making false assertions-----

-----that the Chief Whip never gave a nod?

The nod became a thumbs-up.

This is all Sinn Féin-speak, and now Deputy Bacik is parroting it. The Labour Party has tied itself to the hip of Sinn Féin and will regret it.

I know the Labour Party a long time. I know a lot of ordinary Labour Party supporters who are not happy with the way it has become an appendage to the Sinn Féin Party.

When Deputy Bacik used the phrase "prearranged"-----

-----she was parroting the Sinn Féin false assertion.

I do not mind Deputy Bacik having a different view - of course we all have different views and different perspectives - but-----

-----she cannot make deliberately false assertions, just generally.