Speaking in the Dáil this evening on Labour’s Private Member’s motion on reforming governance, Deputy Burton said that “restoring Ireland’s shattered reputation is a critical challenge facing the next government – and it is most certainly only with a new government that we can begin to restore it.

“We need a clean break with the past, to forget the old way of doing things.

“If we are to restore the trust of our people in the republic, and of investors in our creditworthiness, we must usher in a new era of open, transparent, accountable governance. 

“The next government must signal loud and clear that it will be a reforming government, and that it will rise to the many challenges we face as a people.”

“The NESC highlighted five parallel crises in Ireland: the banking crisis, the public finances crisis, the economic crisis, the social crisis and the reputational crisis.

“They are all interlinked and mutually reinforcing.

“Our government has not yet even faced up to Ireland’s reputational crisis; understandably, perhaps, as it is Fianna Fáil’s disastrous decade of mis-rule that has shredded the country’s reputation on the world stage and in the markets.

“When the Labour Party was last in government, we introduced the Freedom of Information Act.

“It was a new departure in transparent governance at the time.

“It has been gutted by Fianna Fáil in government.

“Even in the light of all that has happened in the past three years, they have steadfastly refused to expand the Freedom of Information to cover the Central Bank, the Financial Regulator, the NTMA and Anglo Irish Bank.

“Omerta still holds sway.

“The Labour Party is committed to restoring Freedom of Information it to its former glory if returned to office.”