The Government should develop a long-term vision for the Republic and focus efforts on building a social recovery, Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar has said. At the Michael Collins-Arthur Griffith commemoration in Glasnevin Cemetery yesterday, Mr Varadkar said increasing taxation was not the solution to the State's social deficits.

“Collins recognised that ‘the essence of our struggle was to secure freedom to order our own life’,” he said. “And that is the vision that should be at the heart of our thinking in the 21st century . . . We need to advance and expand the recovering economy so that more people are free to order their own life; they are free to achieve their ambitions and their dreams.”

Mr Varadkar said it was the role of the Government to make that happen and to “provide freedom and opportunity”, as improvements in the economy “will be meaningless if citizens do not reap the rewards.

“Economic gains on their own, without a vision for society to accompany them, will result in a squandered prosperity that will ultimately be unsustainable. We had that during the boom years. We must ensure that we do not have it again in the recovery years.”

Mr Varadkar, who later insisted his speech was not a pitch for the Fine Gael leadership, backed Taoiseach Enda Kenny's comments on a united Ireland and the possibility of a Border poll. He said this could only be achieved through respect and consent and by accepting and respecting the minority traditions. "It was easy for some to jump on the Brexit result and use it to make a land-grab for Northern Ireland," he said, "and it was counterproductive.

“Often the people who speak loudest about republican values are the least when it comes to honouring them. The inclusive vision of Griffith is better than the opportunistic rhetoric of assimilation, and it is the only chance we have of securing lasting peace and achieving genuine unity on this island.”

Collins served as minister for finance in the first Dáil in 1919 and was a member of the Irish negotiating team and a signatory of the Anglo Irish Treaty. He was shot dead in an ambush at Béal na mBláth in Cork on August 22nd, 1922.

Griffith was the founder of Sinn Féin and president of the Dáil from January to August 1922. He died 10 days before Collins.