As this is the last time I will take to my feet this year, I extend to everyone a very happy and peaceful Christmas. Nollaig shona daoibh go léir. At the start of this year, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael formed the Government on the back of a grubby deal with Michael Lowry and his group of so-called Independents - a grubby deal that was all about keeping power, not about what is good for ordinary people. It was a deal that saw the Government appoint a record number of super-junior Ministers to Cabinet. Of course, the courts will have their say on that matter on Friday. Eleven months on, at the end of the year, we have a do-nothing Government. It is a Government whose first year has been defined by failure, scandal and broken promises. Its failure in housing persists, with devastating consequences for people desperate to put an affordable roof over their head. When it comes to passing legislation, the Government is at nothing. It has passed the fewest number of laws in the first year of any government this century. In 25 years, over six governments, this Government is the worst. It is a go-slow coalition that cannot even get the basics of governance done. Then there is the cost of living. People are hammered with price increases and rip-off bills but the Government refuses to help. It refused to bring forward a cost-of-living package. It delivered a budget of €9.4 billion that, astonishingly, left working people worse off. It hiked up the price of petrol, diesel, home heating oil, road tolls and the local property tax. The Government allows big energy companies and large supermarket chains to price-gouge and fleece people. It does nothing to stop it. Worse than that, over the past week, we have seen the most mean-spirited, lousy approach in respect of blister packages, which is putting pressure on low-income people, including the elderly. Again, this was done without costing the Government a thought. Then there is the Government's waste of public money. Millions of euro have been wasted on bike sheds, security huts and empty offices. There is also, of course, a raft of broken election promises, of which there are many. The Government promised to cut student fees but hiked them up. It promised action to get bills and prices down; they go up and up. It promised to give workers a break on their income tax but instead gave those tax breaks to developers, landlords and banks. As soon as the Government got back into power, its promises disappeared like snow off a ditch. The most damning failure of this do-nothing Government is its failure of the children who are denied assessments of needs and school places, children living in poverty and children living with scoliosis and spina bifida. This will be Gillian and Stephen Morrison Sherratt's first Christmas without Harvey. The unimaginable pain of losing Harvey has been compounded by the fact he was deliberately removed from a waiting list by Children's Health Ireland. That was done without the knowledge or consent of Harvey's parents. Children with scoliosis and spina bifida were promised they would wait no longer than four months for their surgeries. Does the Taoiseach remember that promise? Harvey was just one of the children for whom that promise was broken time and again. Today, 233 children wait for their operations. Every day they wait, the Government fails them, just as it failed Harvey. Tá faic déanta ag an Rialtas. Le linn na chéad bhliana in oifig, bhí sé gafa i scannal, teipeanna agus gealltanais bhriste. There we have it - the Taoiseach's do-nothing Government's year of failure laid bare. Those failures have big consequences for so many people. Does the Taoiseach accept his Government is the worst-performing government this century?

Sentiment score: -0.08

The Taoiseach should please forgive me, as I did omit the issue of infrastructural failures from my list. I thank him for jogging my memory. In fact, the mythical metro of which he speaks has gone on for decades. It is a bit like the children's hospital. It is one of these things that is spoken of in hushed tones, billions are allocated and maybe one day we will wake up and it will be a reality, or maybe not - certainly not on the Taoiseach's watch. I would not have any great hope. It is the Taoiseach who engages in spin and soundbites when he is called out about the reality of people's lives on the ground and the fact that people are struggling with their bills. He refuses to help. In fact, he takes action to make matters worse. The fact is that he has spectacularly failed our children, in particular those I have listed who are awaiting assessments of need, looking for school places or living with scoliosis and spina bifida. He has no answer to that because his is a government of failure, legislatively and-----

Sentiment score: -0.09

----- on a day-to-day basis in very practical ways, in making people's lives easier.

Sentiment score: 0.42

In fact, it seems to me that his ambition is to make people's lives more difficult. How is that for a Christmas bonus for people?

Sentiment score: 0.06