LABOUR LEADER Eamon Gilmore has angrily dismissed a Government plan for the Dáil to sit for one extra week, in response to his party’s insistence that it was “unthinkable” for the House to adjourn for three months over the summer.
In a private members’ motion, he called for the Dáil to sit towards the end of July and to return in early September, rather than to “up sticks in the second week of July and not do any public business until the end of September”.
A persistent critic of the long Dáil adjournments in the summer and at Christmas, Mr Gilmore said “the message we need going out from here is not that deputies are on holidays, but that the country faces serious problems and leave is cancelled”.
He said the economy was heading for recession and in the wake of the referendum rejecting the Lisbon Treaty, Ireland was “now probably facing the biggest diplomatic challenge since the second World War”.
He said that “there is an apprehension in the pit of the stomach of the nation as regards how matters are going”.
He added that they could not ignore that the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty “demonstrates how much trust in politics has been eroded”.
“It turns out, that there is, after all, a price to pay at the ballot box for a decade and more of Charvey shirts, tents at the Galway races, and winnings at imaginary race meetings.
“There is a price to pay when the high calling of public service is reduced by personal enrichment. There is a price to pay for the constant traffic in and out of tribunals.”
Comparing Dáil sittings in 2005, the latest year for which international comparisons are available, he said the Dáil sat for 92 days, the House of Commons for 133 days, the US Senate was in session for 159 days, the House of Representatives for 140 days, the Norwegian parliament for 101 days, and the Italian chamber of deputies for 159 days.
Responding for the Government, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dick Roche spoke at length about the economy.
At the end of his speech he said: “Accordingly it is appropriate that the current Dáil session be extended to allow the annual report of the National Development Plan to be debated in the week of July 7th.”
Ciaran Cuffe (Green, Dún Laoghaire) said he was “glad to see the Green party commitment to extra sitting times” was being implemented, with an extra week’s sitting.
He added that “if we were to sit for several weeks further in July there would be discomfort on the Opposition benches”. There had always been a public call from the Opposition for the Dáil to sit longer, “but background whispers of ‘c’mon lads don’t go too far’.”
Earlier, Taoiseach Brian Cowen refused to be drawn in detail when Mr Gilmore challenged him about extending the Dáil session in July.
Mr Cowen focused on the economy and said “there is no question of suspending our management of the economy on the basis of when the Dáil rises, whenever that might be”.
He added that “we are talking about maintaining a responsible budgetary position, working in a disciplined fashion, setting out the situation for 2009 and the year after – which will prioritise our capital programme to get the greatest possible rate of return”.
The debate will continue tonight.
