Colm Brophy

It's not just my job to represent people who are on social media or to represent people who are able to shout loudest, but also to listen to pensioners, to listen to people of every age, people who don't necessarily have the same ability to communicate through Twitter or Facebook or whatever, but need to have their voices heard and need to make sure the government is listening to them.

And I choose as a public representative to be out there every single day, making myself available and hearing what everyone is saying to me,

in terms of what they want us to do.

And they're very clear, by the way, they want us to make sure that we recognise the cost of living crisis, which is there, and we do, and make sure that we address it, which we are with these two very substantial proposals, the biggest effectively in Europe that any government has brought in.

I'm absolutely confident.

And talking to my independent colleagues last night and over the last number of days, I think there's a real sense of solidness within support for what this government is doing.

And indeed, I mean, you know... You might have thought Michael Healy-Ray was solidly in support as well until he decided he wasn't.

Well, I think Deputy, as he now is Michael Healy-Ray, a minister as he was up to 24 hours ago, I think there's a really important thing.

When you're supporting a government, there are good days, there are bad days.

But you're there doing the right thing on the overall basis for the country, not just for one county or the people of one county.

You're there.

And I would have liked, obviously, to have seen Michael do that.

In the way that myself and Jim O'Callaghan work together, day in, day out, solidly, we have a very good working relationship.

And myself and Minister O'Callaghan will be bringing forward the International Protection Bill today to conclusion.

And that's the type of solid working relationship in government that's delivering for this government.

Well, we weren't caught in the hop because the government... You mean that was the planned response?

The government introduced an initial proposal.

They made it very clear.

When we introduced our initial proposal, the ministers were absolutely clear.

I remember the Tánaiste repeating this in multiple interviews that this would be the first of a staged response and that government would look at what more was needed to be done and if more was needed to be done