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The government needs to speak with one voice and the parties must stop “shooting themselves”, they have told Dáil.
Independent TD Richard O’Donoghue claimed that the Coalition only operates at 50 percent, and called on Tánaiste Leo Varadkar to stop being “populist” and do the work he signed up for.
Speaking during the leaders’ questions, the Limerick TD compared the Government to a bus speeding down a hill with Taoiseach Micheál Martin at the wheel, the Tánaiste trying to divert it, and the Green Party leader, Eamon Ryan, asleep on the road. back.
However, Varadkar insisted that the government “is working as one” since its formation.
O’Donoghue said that all they were hearing was “negative, negative, negative.”
He also accused Sinn Féin of destroying Ireland’s reputation with a twist and said the party would highlight “all the negative things because that’s what it does.”
The previous government drove the bus to the top of the hill, he said, and stopped it on a slope. The new government was formed and is now driving 100 mph and coming into a 90 degree curve.
“The audience now sees that we are going downhill at 100 mph with Micheál Martin at the wheel and they see the Tánaiste trying to make the bus skid and Eamon Ryan asleep in the back.”
Calling on Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party to speak with one voice, he said they should stop “shooting themselves on television to be popular.”
Rural pubs
O’Donoghue said that Rural Independent TDs have requested the opening of rural pubs and when the Tánaiste said he thought they should open, his own party, Fine Gael, didn’t even know he had said so.
He called on Mr. Varadkar to “stop being a populist and do the job he signed up for.”
The Tánaiste said, however, that “he had no idea what the deputy means when he says that members of the government parties have been separating on television.” He had not witnessed it and would be interested in hearing an example.
He said there were people who “would do everything possible to fan, invent and exaggerate the differences that may arise between different politicians and parties.”
Referring to rural pubs, he said that he told his parliamentary party that he believed they should be allowed to open and that they were working on a plan for that and the Taoiseach felt the same.
“I have never suggested that there is a difference between us on that matter because there was not.”
He said people would say that he and Foreign Minister Simon Coveney were “at war over Brexit” when they were asked different questions and gave slightly different answers.
“That was always silly,” but a “certain element” of that narrative was being promoted.
O’Donoghue said they wanted to “slow down this bus so we can get around the curve and keep everyone safe.”
The Tánaiste insisted that the public is listening to “a message” from the Government, collectively agreed. Different government voices came out and defended that message while the Opposition “decided to try to make holes and undermine the plan” and undermine the public health message in general.
The parties in the Government “showed absolute unity.”
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