I move the following motion, No. 5 on the Order Paper in my name:
That the Ceann Comhairle direct the Clerk of the Dáil to issue his writ for the election of a member to fill the vacancy which has occurred in the membership of the present Dáil following on the resignation of Deputy Michael O'Kennedy, a member for the constituency of North Tipperary.
I hope that the fact that it is nearly 30 years ago since I moved a motion for the issuing of a writ for a by-election will emphasise to all Deputies that I have not taken this decision lightly. On both sides of the House there is little difference between us that the Republic is in a state of economic crisis pretty well unprecedented in the history of the State. I make the concession that we are all guilty in this matter. In the media and here in the House we all have been preoccupied with general election speculation.
It might have been presumptuous for an Independent Deputy to usurp the power of the Government by moving the writ, but I believe the delay in this matter is part of the general election manoeuvring which has been taking place for a long time. We all know, and above everybody else the Taoiseach has known for at least a year, that Deputy O'Kennedy was likely to be going to Europe and that a vacancy in Dáil membership would then be created. Therefore it seems to me that there should not have been even the delay which is usual when a vacancy arises in Dáil membership, occasioned by the death of one of us.
Incidentally, it was noticeable on the occasion of the regretted death of the Ceann Comhairle, Deputy Brennan, that we had little or no delay in the moving of the writ. After what I will call the palace revolution in Fianna Fáil, the replacement of Deputy Lynch by Deputy Haughey as Taoiseach, there was at first the trickle of a debate about a general election and this became intensified on the Government side after the Donegal by-election. Since then this has eased on the Government side and it is in full spate now on the Opposition side, understandably following the budget—I, personally, have taken part in this and I do not try to exculpate myself. There has been preoccupation with a debate about tactics among us here.
Yet we are all in agreement with the people, the electorate, that things have never been more serious, that there is a condition of near crisis, with unemployment up by 30 per cent, the appalling debt load which the PAYE income just about meets, the trade union movement worried about the prospects of new national wage negotiations in the autumn. The Government seem to be distracted from their job, and I do not blame Ministers feeling they should be looking over their shoulders. The necessary work is not being done in the Departments of Health and Education and various other Departments and there is a general feeling of stagnation in the Government and in the country. It is my belief that the people do not understand why there is delay in the moving of this writ and that there is preoccupation with and speculation about the proposed general election.
This Government have been in office for three years and they have had an unprecedented strength and power in their majority. They could pass any law; they could provide any remedy. They still have their majority and the best part of 18 months to run but we are all wondering whether they know that the position is so serious that they are afraid to face the country and are running away because they have no solution for the problems of the next three or four years should they be re-elected, no more than they have had such solutions in the past.
There is much worse to come. They say that ours is a small open economy and this is the reason for our disastrous present situation. What do they propose to do to change that reality? The sad truth is that, up to the present at any rate—possibly it is one of the disabilities of Opposition—the Opposition have not provided a solution either, with the exception of the Labour Party's socialist programme put forward at their conference which, alas, is unlikely to be implemented in the reasonably near future.
