I was saying, Sir, when we adjourned for lunch, that for many people the events that took place in 1982 that have been so well written about in the last week or so are largely academic and that the question of immediate concern is the credibility today of Government Ministers and the credibility of what they said last week. There is a danger that we regard those events as too academic. Their significance, of course, was that there was an extraordinary failure in constitutional probity on the part not just of the Tánaiste but also on the part of the Taoiseach and on the part of former Deputy Sylvester Barrett.
I must say, Sir, that one listens with regret to the type of speeches that we have been subjected to from the Fianna Fáil side where it has been said that the Tánaiste has been smeared. Deputy Burke, the Minister for Justice, used the extraordinary language I am talking about: "deceit, baiting and slander".
None of these problems, however, would have arisen if the Tánaiste, on the now famous "Questions and Answers" programme, had simply said in reply to the question that telephone calls had been made to the Park; that he was amongst those who made the calls; that this was done in the heat of the moment and that he recognises now that what was done should not have been done; that President Hillery was right in not taking the calls, or that he was right in ticking him off when he spoke to him, as was suggested in the Jim Duffy interview; that if he was President he would not take such calls either and that he would behave in the same way as President Hillery behaved. If the Tánaiste had said that we would have no issue, and none of the problems of the Government in the last week would have been experienced. If, after the "Questions and Answers" programme the Tánaiste at that stage had a recollection, be it a mature recollection or otherwise, and said that he was mistaken in the reply he had given, or if the Taoiseach had not misled the House last Thursday, or if the Minister for the Environment had not misled the House last Thursday we would not be in the bind we are in now.
Talk of smears is total nonsense. The Tánaiste will go down in history as the first person to achieve the amazing feat of smearing himself as opposed to being smeared by anyone else. It is most regrettable that the Taoiseach, in his reply, conducted a disgraceful attack on someone who is not even a Member of this House. In the phrase used by the Taoiseach in reference to Mr. Duffy, "who we are supposed to believe was doing no more than researching a thesis", the implication is that he was doing something else. As the Taoiseach well knows, Mr. Duffy spoke to a number of Members of this House and taped interviews with them. It seems that because what the Tánaiste put on tape does not fit his current recollection of what took place in 1982 that it is Mr. Duffy that the Taoiseach wishes to hold responsible for what has happened. It goes back to the old approach that if one does not like the message one should shoot the messenger. That is not the approach one would expect to be taken by the Taoiseach on this issue at this stage. Indeed, I suggest if that particular extract from the Taoiseach's speech was uttered outside this House, Mr. Duffy would probably have a sound action for defamation.
The problem we have is that it appears that the Fianna Fáil Party in general, the Taoiseach in particular, and indeed the Tánaiste have no concept of the need for truthfulness in public office when replying to questions on matters of significant importance. Outside this House on the issue of whether or not politicians tell the truth, we are all tarred with the one brush. "You are all the same" is the reaction one gets when one talks about politicians and trustworthiness and truthfulness. I absolutely reject that. The problem that not just my party but the other parties on this side of the House have is that the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and Fianna Fáil have given politics and politicians here a bad name by their view that it does not matter what one says, that one says whatever fits the moment and one can say the opposite the following week to deal with the following week's crisis. It has created a crisis of credibility. There is a credibility gap with regard to what politicians say and what the people of the country believe. That credibility gap is particularly dangerous in a democracy because it is turning young people away from politics, from participation in politics and from acknowledging the importance of the democratic system that we have.
If the Taoiseach and members of the Government cannot be believed when they respond to queries on this issue, how can they be believed when they give responses to other issues? If untruthful answers had been given to try to sort out Fianna Fáil's difficulties in regard to the Presidential election on events that took place in 1982, how can we now believe what the Taoiseach says about the background to the Goodman scandal? How can we now believe what the Taoiseach says when this Government avoid addressing the issues created by the problems of the Gallagher group, and indeed fail to give reasons why prosecutions are not being brought? Why is it, Sir, that when major problems of this nature arise, they become issues of the moment for a few weeks? They might star for a few days in the media and then disappear out of sight. There is no true accountability and what Government Ministers say is often not believable.
There were great headlines some months ago about the Dublin planning scandal. For a year and a half we are told an investigation has been undertaken in fits and starts into the problems of bribery in the planning system in the city and county of Dublin and which we are told in media reports may have affected An Bord Pleanála. Yet in a year and a half we found it impossible to get a comprehensive statement from the Minister for Justice or the Minister for the Environment as to what is happening in that area. Is there a scandal? Are there prosecutions to be brought? If we are told anything about it, will we believe what the Minister for the Environment, Deputy Flynn, or the Minister for Justice, Deputy Ray Burke, says on those issues?
In no other democracy in the European Community would there be a lingering planning scandal alleged in the media for a year and a half, and a Government evading coming into the Houses of Parliament to account for what is happening. We drift from one public scandal to another. This Government have now reached the stage where they need to be called to account, not just for the untruthfulness of what was said in this House last week but for their failure to fully and comprehensively account for a whole series of public issues on which they have been evading facing up to their responsibilities.
The Minister for Justice, in what was the nearest thing to a soap box election speech, an after Mass speech, that we have heard so far from any of the Fianna Fáil contributors, talked about the record of the Government, and indeed the Taoiseach sought to do that as well. In so far as this Government have a good economic record, it is because Fine Gael ensured they behaved themselves in the economic area and I suppose in fairness to them, the Progressive Democrats may have kept them under control to some extent as well, but this Government have a rotten record in other areas.
The health service is still in a state of near collapse. There are appalling queues of people waiting for heart by-pass operations. How many people will lose their lives because the health service cannot provide heart by-pass operations with the speed with which they are required? There is a total absence of necessary facilities in particular for the adult mentally handicapped, an area this Government have turned their backs on. The overcrowded classrooms are now becoming part of a renewed campaign by teachers and parent organisations. The Taoiseach sought to clap himself on the back about this Government's environmental achievements. We have big lies in politics and we have little lies. We had the lie about this time last year when the Government opposed the Fine Gael Bill to establish an environment protection agency and promised they would produce a bigger and better Bill, but what has happened? The Government voted down the Fine Gael legislation to provide an environmental agency that we badly need but have not yet introduced legislation in that area.
Last week the Taoiseach wondered when did his Government promise local government reform. He had to be reminded that his Government promised local government reform when postponing the local government elections last June, but that was last June and it did not matter when it came to the autumn. Last week the Taoiseach forgot about something else which now has very serious implications. He forgot that there was a report of a constituency boundary commission for which legislation should have been introduced and which should have been brought before the House during this session to implement that commission's recommendations. If we go to the country tonight we will be doing so with the old unreformed constituency boundaries for a second time. This goes back to the attempt made by the Taoiseach and his party, including the Minister for the Environment, to, in effect, gerrymander the constituencies before the last general election.
There is a lack of trust in this Government. They lack credibility and they do not deserve the confidence of this House. It is a very sad day that the Taoiseach came into this House today to bluff and bluster his way through what is a serious issue of confidence and credibility. It is an even sadder day that he did it on foot of trying to blacken the name of someone who is not a Member of this House. The Taoiseach's performance in this House today indicates his unfitness to remain Taoiseach of this country.
We all know events are taking place outside this Chamber that may impinge on what happens to the Government within the next few hours. I await the Progressive Democrat's contribution to this debate. We know that Deputy O'Malley can tell us that more than one person phoned Aras an Uachtaráin in 1982. I am asking Deputy O'Malley to come into this House and to put on the record whether persons, other than those who have already admitted making such phone calls, made them. Deputy O'Malley was an insider and he had an inside track. The Progressive Democrats have a constitutional duty to clarify exactly who is and who is not telling the truth. Even if Deputy Lenihan decides to resign this evening, that leaves the Taoiseach and his conduct, not just in 1982 but in 1990 in misleading this House to be called for reckoning. I believe the electorate will take a poor view of a Taoiseach who feels he can lie to the country whenever it suits him.
