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will serve for the next five years. While we take reasonable time to move towards agreement on the composition and, more importantly, the programme of the next Government, we have a Government in place which is capable of reacting quickly if challenging events materialise. Our constitutional arrangements remain … today certain core priorities which are defining our approach to discussions on Government formation. The new Government must be founded on a clear programme of action as well as clear principles about how it will work. Respect and good faith in dealings with each other, agreement to focus

that will transform lives, will be able to relieve poverty and can give hope. In the general election, we campaigned for a constructive programme to build a sustainable Ireland that protects and restores our environment through urgent and ambitious State action. We campaigned for a fairer Ireland where … deliver the services that people need. Children need care, people need public transport and people need the roll-out of a massive retrofitting programme. We need to see the State enabling ambition at all stages of life. We need it to invest in offshore wind development

policies. We owe it to those communities to bring about a vision of an active State that can deliver change. That is the programme we stood for as the Labour Party, and it is the programme we will be working to achieve, whether in government or in opposition

have achieved a great deal, including a newly established Business Committee that gives every party and group an input into the work programme; a new and independent Parliamentary Budget Office, which advises us on the outcomes of public expenditure and the cost of proposals that are put before

nation. We know the geopolitical challenges that we face, a Cheann Comhairle, and which will require a strong, stable Government with a coherent programme and a fiscal and budgetary strategy to be able to help those who need it in the here and now and invest in longer

discussing who will be the next Taoiseach, the Social Democrats would like us to look at and go back to the programme of the First Dáil in 1919, which stated: It shall be the first duty of the Government of the Republic to make provision … that no child

children and young people I have worked with over the past 30 years through youth arts, youth services, the school completion programme, my doctoral work and through my teaching in DCU. I am here in front of many Members' children and young people, and indeed my own children

party being against short-termism. There is no doubt that this Government does not do short-termism. Most of the infrastructural projects in the country are grinding to a glacial halt at present. The Government is now talking about coming back on 22 January. To come back