Brian O'Connell

You threw everything you had at it and they sailed through a vote of confidence.

Not great for you guys, is it?

If public opinion is the way you suggest, why isn't Sinn Féin doing better than the opinion polls?

So the three quarters of a billion quid would have sorted it out, would it, if it had been done earlier?

Well, it's a fairly important question, Deputy.

OK, let's put some of that to Minister Colin Brophy.

So the government has been accused of not listening.

Now, in fairness, you can't accuse the government in the last week of dropping the ball because it appears the government didn't realise the ball had been thrown in in the first place.

You were completely caught in the hop.

Are you seriously trying to tell us that that package was not influenced by the protests?

But these are time-limited measures.

I mean, is there really any realistic prospect that you'll roll back on those measures, that you'll actually introduce the increase in carbon tax and all the rest of it?

Because this is eating into a surplus when we don't know what's around the corner.

Yesterday was talking about tax cuts in the next budget.

John McManus in the Irish Times is pointing out

This is the time to manage expectations, not to feed them.

It's lunacy, surely, to be talking about tax cuts at a time when we don't know what the budgetary position is going to be come October.

OK, I want to bring David Cullinan back in.

Ten cents reduction in excise duty on a litre of petrol and diesel, delay in the introduction of the carbon tax, all of which will presumably help people with the price of fuel.

And you've voted against them.