AS PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT TD Bríd Smith ends her time in the Dáil, she has, for good measure, had one final heated exchange with Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin.

Last summer, Smith announced she would not be contesting the next general election, with councillor Hazel de Nortúin set to run in her place. 

With the election due to be called on Friday, today will be the last day in the Dáil for all outgoing TDs. 

The Tánaiste and Smith have had many fiery exchanges over the course of Smith’s time in the Dáil. 

Today, the Dublin South-Central TD began her speaking time during Leaders’ Questions by thanking the staff and her colleagues in Leinster House, before adding that she is “looking forward to not banging my head off a wall”.

“I have done it for the past nine years and have had enough of it. Hazel can bang her head off the wall when she comes in here,” she said. 

Smith then made an appeal to other opposition parties to stop “propping up” Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. 

“I want to focus today on how we end 100 years of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

“When I was born in 1957, de Valera was in power, and before that, it had been Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael since the State was founded. We still have Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, although they have shrunk so much they have had to join forces,” Smith said. 

“To be honest, they have always preferred the interests of big business, developers, bankers and the rich in this country and that is why, as we live in one of the wealthiest countries on the planet, we have one of the greatest levels of inequality.” 

Pointing to the housing crisis, the waiting list for children with scoliosis, and the government’s failure to pass the Occupied Territories Bill, Smith asked Tánaiste Micheál Martin when the government will “stop making false promises to the Irish public and breaking them once it gets into power”.

In response, the Tánaiste said he is “acutely aware” of the issues facing the government and the country but that Smith and her “hard-left colleagues, along with Sinn Féin” are “peddling” a narrative that Ireland is a “failed state”. 

“That is a pernicious, insidious lie,” the Tánaiste said.

“The truth is that we have come from being one of the of the most poverty stricken countries in the 1920s to now having one of the highest standards of living in the world, with more people in employment than ever before,” he said.

“It is wrong that Deputy Smith does not at least have the good grace to acknowledge the extraordinary progress the country has made, notwithstanding the challenges that we have.”

Smith then pointed to health waiting lists, the record number of homelessness in the State and the 140,000 long housing list.

“We can throw figures across the floor at each other but these are facts that the Tánaiste does not address. As a left-wing TD and a socialist, I came in here to try to address them, and that is why I talked about the headbanging exercise. The government is not interested in ending inequality in this country,” Smith said. 

She then called on the Tánaiste to tackle extreme poverty and inequality by taxing the wealth of the rich.

“Take the money off them and stop being their favourite guys in the Dáil.

“Be the favourite guys of the ordinary people.”

The Tánaiste then responded: “I am the son of a busman.”

“So am I. I am the daughter of a busman,” Smith shot back.

Tánaiste: “I came from a working-class community.”

Smith: “So what?”

Tánaiste: “I did not interrupt the Deputy. I will tell her “So what?”

The Ceann Comhairle then interjected to call for order. 

Tánaiste: “I am the son of a busman who was a founding member of the NBRU.”

Smith: “So was my Da.”

Tánaiste: “I am the first to get to second level education in our family and we were the first generation to get to third level.”

Smith: “I was the first to do the leaving certificate in my family.”

Tánaiste: “I do not need lectures from the far-left, and many from the far-left who were educated in far more luxurious schools than I was ever educated in.”

Smith responded to this by saying the Tánaiste can “talk all you like about your childhood but you have not addressed the inequality.”

The Tánaiste then said he is the “product of the Fianna Fáil-Donogh O’Malley revolution of free education”, to which Smith said: “God help us”.

The Tánaiste said it was here that his passion for education came from and that this is what drove him to enter politics. 

“The Deputy does not have a monopoly on care or compassion on her side of the House,” he said, before accusing Smith of failing to understand the “Irish economic model that has created enterprise and the opportunity for people to grow and develop in this country.”

Martin said this is what the pair should be debating. 

Smith finished by responding: “Not the inequality. Do not debate the inequality.”