Dáil return set for bitter economic debate

THE first row of what promises to be a bitter new Dáil term broke out last night before the house had even opened its doors for business.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen will face a grilling from Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and his Labour counterpart Eamon Gilmore when the Dáil resumes this morning following its three-month summer break.

But Fine Gael fired its first shot last night when accusing the Government of being “out of touch” for refusing to agree to an emergency two-day debate on the country’s economic woes.

“After a summer of economic crisis heaped upon economic crisis, the Government refused to come back early, refused to spell out their plans to the country and have refused an emergency debate on the state of the economy,” said Fine Gael chief whip Paul Kehoe.

“In fact, the first item of business on the Government’s Dáil agenda is a joint taxation agreement with the Isle of Man, Macedonia and Vietnam. This, as much as any other single issue, highlights just how out of touch and divorced from the everyday reality of people’s lives this Government truly is.”

Because the Government refused to agree to the economic debate, Fine Gael will instead raise the issue during Private Members’ Time tonight and tomorrow.

Private Members’ Time is the slot where opposition parties are afforded time to raise matters of their own choosing.

Fine Gael will put forward a motion condemning the Government for its “reckless economic policies”. The party will withdraw its pairs for Government TDs when the vote is taken on the motion tomorrow.

Pairing is an arrangement whereby if a Government minister is out of the country on official business and therefore unable to make a vote, he is “paired” with a Fine Gael TD who will also not vote.

The Taoiseach, however, dismissed the Fine Gael manoeuvre as “political posturing”.

“I think it’s very unfortunate. Obviously there are ministers out of the country doing the country’s business abroad and I hope that they can be allowed to get on with that business,” he said.

The Taoiseach himself will fly to New York later after he concludes his business in the Dáil today to attend a United Nations conference.

However, the Government’s comfortable majority in the Dáil should allow it to defeat the Fine Gael motion even in the absence of a pairing arrangement.

Meanwhile, Labour chief whip Emmet Stagg has criticised the Government’s programme for the coming term.

“There is little in the legislative programme for the forthcoming Dáil session which suggests that the Government has taken any steps to deal with the legislative backlog that saw the Oireachtas enact just 17 acts so far this year,” said Mr Stagg.

“While [the] list includes 19 bills to be published in this session... we know from previous experience that many items on this list will not be published in the current session.”