Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 31 Oct 1990

Vol. 402 No. 3

Confidence in Government: Motion.

The Taoiseach

I move:

That Dáil Éireann reaffirms its confidence in the Government.

This move by the Opposition to force a debate of confidence in the Government is inappropriate. There is no reality behind it or public support for it. It is in fact a misuse of Dáil time. It is nothing more than a crude piece of electioneering, an attempt to use Dáil procedures for Presidential election purposes.

There is a continuing high level of public satisfaction with the Government which has extended over a considerable period. The principal reason for this is the dramatic economic progress achieved over the last few years.

The motions are related to statements made in the course of a Presidential election campaign and those made previously by the Fianna Fáil Presidential candidate. Deputy Brian Lenihan is not a Government candidate. He is the Fianna Fáil candidate. The Presidential election is not a Government matter; it is a matter for the people. To attempt to take the election away from the people in this way and to try to have it decided here by a vote of the Dáil is not democratic, it is an infringement of the people's right to decide for themselves who should be President. The selection of a President is now firmly before the people and it is theirs to decide.

For nearly four years now this country has had the benefit of good, effective Government. The Opposition have no alternative policies of any note or any achievements that they can look back to. Instead, they spend their time attacking members of the Government personally, raising one false accusation after another without ever substantiating one of them. I want to assure this House and the nation that I and my Government have maintained — and are determined to maintain — the highest standards in Government. I totally reject any suggestion to the contrary.

The achievements of this Government have been dramatic. During the last four years we have achieved an average economic growth rate of 4 per cent per annum. Since 1987 unemployment has fallen by 30,000, and employment has increased by 40,000. The number of redundancies in 1989 were halved compared with previous years. Emigration is now falling rapidly. There has been a complete turnaround in the public finances. Government borrowing for all purposes has been reduced to its lowest level for well over 30 years, around 2 per cent.

Since 1987 there has been a balance of payments surplus for four years running, an unprecedented achievement. Inflation has been kept in low single figures so that it is now below even the German and the Swiss levels. Interest rates are comparatively low, well below those prevailing in Britain, for example.

Investment, which had been sluggish for most of the eighties is now strong again. Important and indeed on occasion massive new projects, involving thousands of jobs rather than hundreds, such as Maxtor and Intel, and Fruit of the Loom, are coming on stream at regular intervals.

Since 1988 there have been real reductions in personal taxation and in indirect taxation. For many categories of social welfare recipients, there have been valuable real increases in benefits. For all at work, the combination of tax relief with moderate pay rises has increased take-home pay significantly, leading to a real increase in living standards.

All of this has been made possible by a new concept of economic management, which the Government have initiated with the social partners. This is something of unique value; a pearl of great price; the new consensus between the Government and the social partners on economic and social objectives and plans to implement them.

It has been directly responsible for dramatic progress, but I want to make the point that we are only seeing the start of what is possible and attainable. Negotiations have just commenced on a new programme, a programme of economic and social development this time. I believe the social partners would in general be grievously disappointed if the present negotiations for a new Programme for Economic and Social Development were disrupted at this stage.

The International Monetary Fund in their most recent conclusions, dated 15 October 1990, have praised our economic management. I quote from their report:

Since I was in Ireland the last time in 1986 the Irish economy has greatly improved in most areas: wage moderation took hold, as demonstrated by general observance to the three-year Programme for National Recovery; price inflation came down to the ERM average and even below; and international competitiveness improved noticeably, which was an important element in turning the external current account deficit into surplus. While favourable international circumstances have been of help in bringing about these developments, it was in large part policies and developments in Ireland itself which deserve credit.

The remarkable aspect about the achievements of the last four years is that they have been reached on the basis of an emerging consensus of virtually all involved; government, employers, trade unions and the population at large. It is therefore gratifying that even the most entrenched economic problem of Ireland shows some improvement; unemployment has fallen and employment has grown despite the twin challenges of a growing labour force and lower emigration.

The rapporteur from the IMF sums up: "We are heartened by your resolve to stay the course, and we wish you well". That is not Government propaganda, it is a factual report from the IMF.

It is generally accepted on all sides that Ireland's EC Presidency was an outstanding success. It enhanced the country's standing and reputation abroad and will have a beneficial effect for us internationally for many years to come.

We have launched and are already implementing a new ten-year action programme on the environment, to clear up air pollution and to get rid of smog, to purify our rivers, to clean up our beaches, and to promote the planting of broadleaved trees. There has been a huge revival in the tourist industry, with a 14-15 per cent increase in numbers and revenue for the fourth year running. There is massive investment in new accommodation and leisure facilities for tourists. We have unblocked oil and gas exploration with a new regime, which has already resulted in new gas finds. The construction industry is booming. The extended urban renewal scheme has created major new developments in cities and towns such as Limerick, Cork, Waterford and most recently, Tallaght, where I opened the magnificent new town centre last week. We have established a new International Financial Services Centre, that already involves well over 2,000 jobs. We are steadily rectifying the problems that were arising in the health service. More places in third/level education are being made available.

I do not have the time to go into every area of Government policy, but I believe we have achievements to our credit that equal or surpass any previous Government in this country.

However, we are invited to believe by the Opposition parties that all this tremendous achievement is irrelevant and fades into insignificance compared with the Tánaiste's inaccurate description in a private interview with a research student of events that had happened eight years ago when Fianna Fáil were in Opposition. If there was a Nobel prize for irresponsibility, I would happily nominate the leaders responsible for this motion.

I would now like to deal with the events of the night of 27 January 1982 when, after a mere seven months, the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition Government collapsed having been defeated in a budget vote.

After the defeat of the Government, I immediately called a meeting of the Fianna Fáil Front Bench to discuss the situation. We agreed that in the confused state of affairs the question of Fianna Fáil being able to form a Government, if called upon by the President to do so, should be considered. It was also agreed that the former Deputy Sylvie Barrett who was then a member of the Front Bench should seek an interview with the President to put this to him for his consideration. In the event the President did not agree to speak to the former Deputy Sylvie Barrett or to grant him an audience, whereupon I issued a public statement in the following terms:

It is a matter for the President to consider the situation which has arisen now that the Taoiseach has ceased to retain the support of the majority in Dáil Éireann. I am available for consultation by the President should he so wish.

As the House will recall, there turned out to be three General Elections in the space of 18 months, the close proximity of which contributed nothing at all to the stability or prosperity of the country. To suggest that there was anything improper in indicating availability or in making sure that that position was communicated to Áras an Uachtaráin, as former Deputy Sylvester Barrett has confirmed, is difficult to maintain.

I am very definitely not prepared to listen to any lectures or strictures from Fine Gael on respect for the Presidency, on not embroiling the Presidency in politics, or not pressuring the President. The only time in the history of the office that a President was forced out of office, forced to resign, was when President Ó Dálaigh was insulted by a Fine Gael Minister. Everything we are talking about today pales into insignificance compared with the enormity of the public insult from Fine Gael which drove the late President Ó Dálaigh from office. We did not hear much about high standards in high places in those days. The then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Garret FitzGerald, did not call on the Fine Gael Minister for Defence to resign or the Government to resign on that occasion. So, are we to take it from Fine Gael that a mistaken recollection about 'phoning the President in a private interview with a student eight years after the event is a resigning matter, whereas calling the President "a thundering disgrace" as the Fine Gael Minister for Defence did in front of the Army of which he is the Commander-in-Chief is not?

The point has been made that these allegations have been lying around and have not been denied for eight years. If we were to refute every false allegation made against us, we would have little time for anything else. I do not depend on the book by Raymond Smith as a record of fact, but Raymond Smith's book, Stephen O'Byrne's and other accounts all agree on one thing at least, that Deputy Brian Lenihan did not speak on the telephone to the President that night.

Brian Lenihan is a good person. He does not pretend to be a paragon of virtue. He has his faults and failures like the rest of us, but he does not deserve after 30 years of distinguished and faithful public service to be malevolently targeted, set-up and hounded as he has been during the last week. The people of this country know Brian Lenihan to be open and honest and decent, and they just do not accept that he meant to deceive them or let them down.

I regret to say that the attitude of some sections of the media to this affair has been disappointing. Another Presidential candidate, Mrs. Mary Robinson, was interviewed by a jounalist for the magazine Hot Press. That interview is also on tape. A number of the things that candidate Mary Robinson said on that tape were of great significance and farreaching importance in regard to the Presidency but there was no urgent press conference called with Assistant Editors to play that tape and dissect it in public. Let me remind the House of one particular thing that was said during the course of that Hot Press interview by candidate Mary Robinson.

The most serious aspect of the interview was her stated intention to confront the Taoiseach of the day on the basis of having a superior democratic mandate:

The only restrictions on the office of Presidency are when the President is carrying out official powers and functions.... However — and it is a big however — there is no constitutional restraint on what I do outside of these official functions. As a President directly elected by the people of Ireland, I will have the most democratic job in the country. I'll be able to look Charlie Haughey in the eye to tell him to back off if necessary because I have been directly elected by the people as a whole and he hasn't.

Every Deputy in the House must recognise this is totally contrary to the spirit of the Constitution and a recipe for a crisis that would affect the stability of our political institutions.

I do not recall very much reproving media comment about that interview, or round the clock crisis coverage, or criticism of Mrs. Robinson's subsequent attempt to deny what she had said in another part of the taped interview.

Let me turn now to the Brian Lenihan interview with a student named Jim Duffy who we are supposed to believe was doing no more than researching a thesis. What Brian Lenihan said on that tape during that interview can be clearly demonstrated to be inaccurate. The central and important statement was certainly not correct, because there is absolutely no doubt that Brian Lenihan on that night back in 1982 did not speak on the telephone to President Hillery. It was a strange kind of interview with the research student putting forward all sorts of leading questions and Brian Lenihan almost falling over himself to pour out colourful answers without reflection. I think most fair-minded people will agree that there are many possible explanations as to why Brian Lenihan should have provided such an inaccurate colourful account of these events and a clearly incorrect version of what happened.

When Deputy Brian Lenihan in May facilitated someone he took to be a bona fide research student with a background interview on the Presidency he does not appear to have been aware of the student's close association with the Fine Gael Party. As with all such interviews and source material, scrupulous researchers will always go back to their sources to verify with them the information they have been given. Indeed, in a letter on 4 October 1990 Mr. Jim Duffy wrote to the Tánaiste the following letter:

As promised, I am sending you a list of quotes from our interview of 17 May last. I would like to be able to use these but want first of all to give you an opportunity to inspect these to ensure their accuracy. If there are any that you would wish me not to use, or else to use without giving the source's name in the footnotes, please let me know.

It is quite clear from that letter that the writer felt that it was necessary to have the Tánaiste verify the accuracy of what he said on tape, a normal and proper academic procedure. However, the Tánaiste was given no such opportunity because the tapes were prematurely released with a statement by Mr. Duffy that he was under political pressure to do so. Political pressure from whom, we must ask.

Deputies

P.J. Mara.

The Taoiseach

In order to clarify a certain confusion on the issue, it is vital to note that in the interview of 17 May the Tánaiste did, as I said, talk about an actual conversation with the President, not that he merely attempted to talk to the President. All the other accounts of what happened that evening support Deputy Brian Lenihan's present denial on mature recollection, when he states that he did not, in fact, speak to the President.

Mr. Shatter

Is there any mature recollection in this contribution?

The Taoiseach

The role of Fine Gael in this whole matter must surely repel all right-thinking people. Deputy Jim Mitchell has boasted about how Fine Gael laid a trap. Fine Gael unscrupulously manipulated the television programme "Questions and Answers" to achieve a political assassination. Deputy Garret FitzGerald was brought in to play his ignoble part in this squalid plot. He was willing to play his part and, as he has so often done before, he overplayed it. He departed from the truth.

I have a transcript of the "Questions and Answers" programme, when he stated categorically "I was in Áras an Uachtaráin when those phone calls were made and I know how many there were", a remark which was followed by the assertion: "It seems to me that eight phone calls were made by people who imitated the voices of leaders of the Opposition".

Deputy FitzGerald subsequently denied that he had necessarily been in Áras an Uachtaráin when the calls were made and maintained that the implication in his remarks that he had recognised voices was a joke.

A Deputy

Rather sick.

The Taoiseach

The inconsistencies and contradictions are there for all to see, and it is quite clear Deputy FitzGerald sought to mislead the public.

Mr. Shatter

Let us hear about your role?

(Interruptions.)

The Taoiseach

I will come to that. I would rather any day have a Brian Lenihan who would, for whatever reason, give an impulsive inaccurate version of something that happened eight years ago than a group of Fine Gael conspirators who, with a cold and ruthless determination, planned to trap and destroy a decent man.

Deputies

Rubbish.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Shatter

Michael Smith tried to welcome his resignation yesterday. Does Michael Smith want him to resign?

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Shatter will have to restrain himself.

(Interruptions.)

The Taoiseach

Deputy Brian Lenihan throughout his career has been a person who has been completely open in his dealings with other people. His wide popularity stems from a recognition of his fundamental decency, his lack of malice and his wish to befriend. His rare qualities, allied to his courage and resilience, have made him universally liked and admired in this House and among the population at large.

There is not the slightest doubt, that Brian Lenihan did not speak to President Hillery on the telephone on the night of 27 January 1982. In fact, President Hillery did not speak on the telephone to anyone in Fianna Fáil that night. The Tánaiste was carefully set up by Fine Gael with the willing collaboration of a Fine Gael activist in a way that breached the ethics of research.

It is not the first time that we have seen these tactics employed by Fine Gael. They have been the hallmark of that party under the influence of Deputy Garret FitzGerald. The more his Government devastated the economy, and the nearer he brought the country to its knees, the more he tried to conceal his failure by a prolonged personalised campaign of attack on Fianna Fáil and on me personally. He bequeathed Alan Dukes to Fine Gael and as the enormity of that mistake becomes increasingly evident, he once again seeks to avert attention by renewing his campaign of villifying his opponents.

In Fianna Fáil we have constantly had to contend with unfounded allegations. The fact that none of them have ever been substantiated has not prevented them being repeated again and again; embellished and added to without regard for either accuracy or truth.

(Interruptions.)

The Taoiseach

I now want to deal with the subject matter of the motions put down. My father was a distinguished Army officer until he left the Defence Forces through ill health. I have been an officer of the Defence Forces. I was brought up to believe in the integrity of our Defence Forces and the Army and I have the highest respect for them. I would never, and never have, insulted an Army officer of our Defence Forces in any way, and I never will.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

The Taoiseach

I reject this allegation with contempt. I want to ask the question: why is it being brought up now after eight years? Why is it being raised now and cast at me in this way? The people opposite who are making this allegation during that eight years have been in Government themselves, they had all the records at their disposal and they knew about this sort of gossip and chat that was going on about that matter since 1982. Why did they not investigate it? They did not because they knew it was a tissue of lies and a fabrication, and that is what I brand it here in the House.

It is a matter of deep regret to me that a campaign, which we intended should be conducted at a high dignified level and in a tone and manner fitting for an election of a President, should have been deliberately dragged down to its present level. In our campaign up until now we deliberately avoided any personal attacks on the other candidates.

Mr. Howlin

Ask Deputy Browne.

The Taoiseach

We largely ignored the mistakes of the other candidates, whether in interviews or their ill-considered and thinly disguised personal attacks on Brian Lenihan. Brian Lenihan is a good man; he has more humanity in his little finger than Alan Dukes and Garret Fitzgerald put together. He has had a political career of distinction, and given unstinting service to the people in every one of the seven ministries he has served in. No one can rival his experience or his international contacts, his deep knowledge of this country and its people. But this is now a matter for the Irish people to decide, and I suggest that the parties in this House should not attempt to pre-empt the people's decision.

I am asking this House to support this vote of confidence in the Government. There are no grounds for doing otherwise. The Government are working successfully. A defeat for this motion will mean a general election. No one is attempting to suggest that a general election at this time could be anything but harmful to the best interests of the people. Surely that cannot be ignored.

I believe the Dáil would be letting the people down if it forces a successful Government out of office and disrupts their plans for economic and social advance. Can the parties here not give the people of this country a break? For a long and painful period of years our people had to endure economic stagnation and a sense of national failure. The country was brought to the verge of bankruptcy. Now that at last the people are seeing and enjoying success, with their country forging ahead, highly respected abroad and looking to a prosperous future, do you really intend to bring all this progress to an end? If you do, it will be a sad day for Ireland and the future prospects for her people.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Mr. Dukes

In what the Taoiseach has just said he has evaded almost every single issue before the House and he has avoided any explanation of any of the issues which has been brought before the people in the last week. I am bound to say that in his indulgent treatment of the way Deputy Lenihan has used words over the last week the Taoiseach has shown a very scant regard and very little understanding of the importance of the truth in public affairs and in the conduct of Government.

The moving of this motion this morning is the first proper thing the Government have done in this whole affair. The moving of this motion has come about simply because there was no other way out of it for the Government. We have seen over the past two days a Government trying every stratagem, every argument and every wriggle to get off the hook on which they were firmly impaled, not by anybody on the Opposition benches, any researcher or reporter but by Deputy Brian Lenihan last Monday night week——

An Ceann Comhairle

An Tánaiste and Minister for Defence.

Mr. Dukes

——by Deputy Brian Lenihan, God help us, an Tánaiste and Minister for Defence on Monday night of last week.

That is the only reason this motion is before us today. My party will vote against this motion because we do not have any confidence in the Government, we do not have any confidence in the veracity of the Government and we do not have any confidence in the Government's ability to rule our affairs in the way the Irish people want them to be run. Lest there be any misunderstanding about this, we are not talking only about the events of January 1982, important in themselves as they are. No, we are talking about the behaviour of the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence since Monday night of last week and the behaviour of the Taoiseach over that period.

I wonder — this struck me when listening to the Taoiseach — if he was trying to distance himself from the Tánaiste. In the third paragraph of his speech this morning the Taoiseach seemed to be trying to distance himself from the Tánaiste as a presidential candidate. That sits very ill with what the Taoiseach has been up to over the past few days. Is he now washing his hands of the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence and candidate for the Presidency? Why was it appropriate yesterday to leave this whole matter in the hands of Brian Lenihan, to quote the Taoiseach? Why was it appropriate to leave it all up to him and his personal decision and why, suddenly today, is that no longer appropriate and the Government have to come in here to defend that person?

We look back over the history of the events here and to the phone calls that were made in 1982 — the Taoiseach himself has recalled the fact that the evidence has been there since 1982 and has quoted some of the sources: Raymond Smith's book, Stephen O'Byrne's book, Geraldine Kennedy's article, Dr. Garret FitzGerald, and now the tape from Jim Duffy. Since last Sunday we have had further confirmation of the fact that telephone calls were made because the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy O'Malley, who was then a member of the Fianna Fáil Front Bench, again confirmed for all of us to hear that phone calls were indeed made to Áras an Uachtaráin in January 1982.

I want to make it quite clear, again, that what is at issue is not so much the substance or the propriety of those phone calls or indeed who they got through to but the fact that they have been denied consistently since Monday of last week. Today we have had a first partial admission from the Taoiseach that phone calls were indeed made.

If we go back to that time we can ask ourselves what was the propriety of those telephone calls, and I can imagine in the situation of that time that a party who felt they could produce an alternative Government in the Dáil might wish that to be considered, might wish it to be known to the public and might wish it to be known to the President. God knows, there are enough ways of making that kind of thing known to the public and to the President without harassing the President's office itself with a series of telephone calls, which have now been admitted.

I leave aside for the moment — because it is not relevant to our debate today — the question of whether or not there was a basis for doing so at the time and the question as to whether the Fianna Fáil Front Bench at the time could possibly have considered that they had a basis for doing it. That perhaps is a discussion for another day. I want to make it quite clear, because the Taoiseach does not seem to have understood it, that the accusations are not of speaking to the President or putting undue pressure on him, the accusations are of making telephone calls to Áras an Uachtaráin and, subsequently, denying that those telephone calls had been made.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Mr. Dukes

On Monday of last week there was an article in one of our national newspapers containing a statement by Deputy Garret FitzGerald about these events. That was denied by the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence. On "Questions an Answers" on Monday night of last week there was a direct question which, again, was denied in the most extraordinary terms by the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence. If there was anything remarkable about that particular programme it was the fact that the Tánaiste himself in the face of all the evidence that is there and in the face of all that he knew himself should deny so publicly and so transparently the fact that phone calls had been made.

In one of our newspapers on Tuesday a further article was carried. At that stage the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence had the opportunity of admitting that he had got it wrong on "Questions and Answers" but he did not take that opportunity. On Wednesday, we had a more comprehensive publication in The Irish Times. The Minister for Labour, at lunch time that day, seemed to recall what the tape might be and seemed to recall what the source of the tape might be. It was the Minister for Labour at lunch time on Wednesday who revealed what he believed the source of the tape might be and it was that revelation on his part that put political pressure on the person who had the tape that led the following day to the playing for the news media of the tape itself. That was the political pressure that led to the disclosure of the tape and that political pressure came from the Minister for Labour and the Fianna Fáil Party.

I watched the "Six-One" news on Thursday evening and I think I have rarely seen a more extraordinary — I will not say performance as I do not want to trivialise this — event during the course of which a man, who had indeed gained a good deal of respect over the years, almost literally turned himself inside out. I have rarely seen anything of that kind. It was a most saddening experience and in some way it was an eerie experience. The only thing that I found over that whole week to be sadder, more eerie and more unbelievable was to watch the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence in person in the "Today Tonight" studio doing the same thing again.

There have been denials from Government spokesmen of any involvement by the Taoiseach in telephoning Áras an Uachtaráin that evening. I am told it may be that the Government spokesman exceeded his brief, but that should not happen. We have before us and have had before us for the last week a picture of a Government who seem to be totally out of control, who do not seem to know what message they want to communicate and how they are going to communicate that message.

We came, finally, to Sunday when, as I have said, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy O'Malley, gave the final piece of confirmation that phone calls were made and confirmed for all of us that everything the Government, or members of the Government or spokesmen for the Government had said during the whole of the preceding week was untrue. The Taoiseach used a phrase earlier on that will come back to haunt him. If ever there was a tissue of lies and fabrication it came out of the Government right through the course of the last week.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Mr. Dukes

The central point and the most important one is that this is not a matter that involves only the Tánaiste and the Minister for Defence, it involves also in the most complete and comprehensive way the Taoiseach himself. There have been suggestions that perhaps this matter could be resolved if the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence resigned from the Government — the matter that the Taoiseach yesterday left up to the Minister himself — but I must say in view of all that has happened and in view of the Taoiseach's yesterday left up to the Minister himself — but I must say in view of all that has happened and in view of the Taoiseach's own close and direct involvement in all this since 1982, it cannot possibly suffice, to restore any shred of credibility to the Government, that the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence resign. He should of course; there is no doubt about that but if he does, then there is so much more reason that the Taoiseach who has co-ordinated, managed and run this fabrication of lies and deception should also himself resign as the only honourable course in this whole affair. Nobody with any probity and nobody with any concern for truth in this whole matter can possibly be satisfied that credibility will have been restored if the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence is made the only sacrifice to be offered up from the Government benches.

We have seen, and I think it is sad that we should see it and hear it in this House this morning, an attempt by the Taoiseach to smear a researcher. The Taoiseach referred to this this morning and I will point out his words:

When Deputy Brian Lenihan in May facilitated someone he took to be a bona fide research student with a back-ground interview on the Presidency he does not appear to have been aware of the student's close association with the Fine Gael Party.

To make it all the more clear to us in words "bona fide research student" are underlined in the Taoiseach's script. If the Taoiseach has to descend to casting aspersions on a researcher — a bona fide researcher — who interviewed the Tánaiste, among many other people, in an unpressurised interview seeking information and views for an historical study, and feels that that is a smear than I think Fianna Fáil have gone back to some of the old routes that we used to know about so well. This is Fianna Fáil denying everything, denying the whole value that Irish people have always placed on education, and they are going back to this old cant we have heard from them for so many years — ten years, 20 years or more — that says if you have letters after your name you are not worth doing business with as far as they are concerned. The fact of the matter is that in an interview, which should have been factual, with a bona fide research student, the Tánaiste told mostly the truth with regard to the events of January 1982 and then embellished it. He then found that it did not suit him to recollect it.

A truth, a Cheann Comhairle, is clearly of primary importance for the conduct of Government. The view that the Taoiseach has set out this morning which indicates that one can bend the truth a little bit, one can play fast and loose with the truth if that will give the effect one wants, is highly dangerous and this House must reject it. Truth is expected of Government. How otherwise can we deal straight with a Government? How can the social partners deal with a Government that shows they have scant regard for the truth? How can this House deal with a Government that shows such little regard for truth? How can Governments of other countries that we deal with have any confidence in dealing with a Government who have so little regard for the truth? We cannot have Ministers who make up the stories of what they are doing as they go along to suit their audience.

There have been far too many occasions when people in Fianna Fáil have been acting as a malign influence on Irish politics. It has been happening for the last 20 years in incident after incident, in scandal after scandal. We have had arms trials, phone tapping and the whole GUBU episode and all that meant. We have had intimidation of Fianna Fáil members. Indeed, I remember hearing on the radio a very cold direct threat to members of that party in a leadership contest when they were told, there is no such thing as a secret ballot, you have to stand up and be counted. That has been so often the hallmark of the way Fianna Fáil have gone about their business and it is time this House said that those standards are not acceptable. We will not have them and the Irish people should be given a chance clearly to reject them.

There are things that are far more important than the fate of individual Members of this House. We need continued economic and social progress. We need job expansion on a far larger scale than we have achieved so far. I reject utterly the contention implicit in the Taoiseach's statement this morning that there is a choice we must make between having this Government, with their scant regard for the truth and economic progress on the one hand, and having some other Government and no economic progress on the other, because that is not the choice that faces the Irish people.

My party, since 1981, and going back even further than that, have always made it clear that we put progress of our nation, the economic and social progress, far higher up our list of priorities than any short term politicial advantage. That will continue to be our motto. That will continue to be the way that we involve ourselves in politics. We have shown that time and again and we will show it in the election that will inevitably follow today's debate. Whatever the result of today's debate, whatever the politicial result that we see over the next few weeks, there is one thing that I am determined on: the Irish people must be the winners from it. The Irish people must get a Government, the expansion and the jobs they need and that must be the primary aim of all political action. That will be my approach during the election that is coming up and after it. I, and my party, will be ready to participate in and indeed, to lead a Government that will put the emphasis on securing for the Irish people the economic and social progress they wish to see brought about.

I will conclude by saying we have, undoubtedly, made progress since 1981. We have made economic and social progress but not anything like as much as we would have wished to see. I am proud of the role my party have played in that both in Government and in Opposition. We will play that role again because that is what we are in politics for and that is what Members of this House are elected to do. Others in this House will have to decide whether they participate in that and to what extent they will participate, but my party will be clearly on the side of the Irish people in achieving that kind of progress.

We will not worry about short term political considerations because we believe that politics must serve the Irish people. It is not the job of the Irish people to serve politics. It is not the job of the Irish people to serve the ambitions of any one party and it is not the job of the Irish people to maintain any one party in that false position which they believe they are entitled to.

A Cheann Comhairle, as I have said we have made progress and it took a great deal of effort and commitment on the part of my colleagues in this party, and myself, beginning in June 1981 and going right through from December 1982 to February 1987. I look back on that time, and God knows they were difficult enough, when in this House we were opposed by the Fianna Fáil Party who show such little regard for the truth. They did not want to know how we made progress or the importance of plain economic common sense and they found themselves in 1987 forced to follow on the same line. I am glad they were forced to follow on the same line and I am glad that as a result of that we have made the kind of progress that has been made here over the last three years. I am prepared to make sure that in an election, and after the election, my party play their proper role in ensuring that that progress continues.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Mr. Spring

At this stage I wonder if it is all over. Have the Government gone?

A Deputy

They have left the House.

Mr. Shatter

An example of the contempt with which the Government treat the House is that we do not have one senior Minister present.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Spring is in possession and must be allowed to make his contribution without interruption.

(Interruptions.)

An Ceann Comhairle

Order, please.

Mr. Spring

Over the weekend a commentator wrote that I was wrong in my assessment made last week that it was a sad week for Irish politics. I still feel I was right and that last week was a sad week for Irish politics. What is going on at the moment is sad for politics and politicians. Let us hope that after this there will be some light ahead for politics and the standards in political life. I am not convinced of that as things stand.

I have to say at the outset that I am astonished that the Taoiseach has chosen to treat the matter which has given rise to this debate with such contempt. He has contented himself with repeating the brazen denials of the past week in circumstances where the entire country has made it clear that they do not believe those denials. He has tried to ensure that the central issue is the personality of Brian Lenihan. It is not — Brian Lenihan is liked and admired on all sides of this House on a personal basis, but he cannot be regarded as being immune from the need for high political standards simply because he is a nice man.

The Taoiseach has compounded the arrogance of his bare-faced denials by indulging himself in a whole series of unworthy smears against people who are Members of this House, and two who are not. His remarks about Mary Robinson are typical of some of the dirt that is being flung by Fianna Fáil speakers around the country in their panic at the imminent prospect of being beaten in a fair contest.

This debate is not about Brian Lenihan, when it is all boiled down. This debate, essentially is about the evil spirit that controls one political party in this Republic, and it is about the way in which that spirit has begun to corrupt the entire political system in our country. This is a debate about greed for office, about disregard for truth and about contempt for political standards. It is a debate about the way in which a once great party has been brought to its knees by the grasping acquisitiveness of its leader. It is ultimately a debate about the cancer that is eating away at our body politic — and the virus which has caused that cancer, An Taoiseach, Charles J. Haughey.

In the 1989 General Election, I said that Fianna Fáil was a party that had become stultified in the grip of one man. As I have watched the events of the last week unfold, in common with thousands of other mystified and outraged citizens of the country, the conviction has been borne in on me more and more that Fianna Fáil is incapable of recovering its former stature for as long as that man is in a position to exert a stranglehold on the party. I have watched the elected Taoiseach of our country tell lies to the Dáil, and brazenly accuse others of lying when he knew the accusations were false; I have watched the Tánaiste try to turn himself into an Irish version of Richard Nixon, staring straight into television cameras and telling lies to the entire nation without so much as a blink.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am concerned about the reference to lies. The standing convention in this House is that deliberate falsehoods should not be attributed to any Member.

Mr. Spring

I am sure the nation shares your concern about lies but at this stage convention in this House has been turned on its ear, unfortunately.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Chair will still strive to uphold the traditions of this House.

Mr. Spring

I appreciate your dilemma, a Cheann Comhairle.

I have watched a succession of Ministers and official Government spokesmen participate in a total and sustained effort to deceive the people who elected them, and as I have watched, I have wondered, as I am sure many thousands of others have wondered, what kind of country have we become. Could it be that these people have simply lost sight of the difference between truth and lies? Or could it be that they have chosen to lie their way, deliberately and casually, out of a political embarrassment simply because they have come to believe they can get away with anything? If that is the case, how has it happened that these elected representatives have developed so much contempt for their electorate that they feel free to tell so many lies?

Let us be quite clear: we have been lied to so often that there is virtually nothing that we can believe in any more. The Taoiseach and his Ministers are like characters from Alice in Wonderland telling us that the truth is whatever they say it is — no more, no less; but we do not live in Wonderland — we live in a democracy where trust in the political system depends ultimately on the truth told by politicians. If truth cannot be relied upon, then democracy ultimately will crumble.

The issues that have been raised in the last week are not new. Many of them arise from stories that have been going the rounds for years. But it is a measure of the cynicism of Fianna Fáil that having ignored the stories for years, they should choose to deny them flatly at any moment when they might cause embarrassment. And when confronted with incontrovertible proof that lies had been told, they simply, and with total arrogance, asserted that anyone pointing to the proof was maliciously motivated.

This is a simple technique. It was perfected by Josef Goebbels in Nazi Germany, and subsequently elaborated by Senator Joe McCarthy in the United States. Both of these politicians had a number of things in common — they both believed that democracy was capable of being twisted to their own ends and they both believed in the efficacy of the big lie.

In the end, both of these politicians destroyed themselves, but not before they had perverted the society in which they lived. And that is the danger we face here — for the last week, and more, we have been in a virtual tailspin of lies and mismanagement, with the situation becoming daily more out of control. The corrupting effect of the political cynicism that we have been watching cannot be overstated. If it is allowed to continue, it will cause long term and lasting damage to our concept of, and commitment to, parliamentary democracy in Ireland.

In the last week, in addition to all the lies, we have all heard one Fianna Fáil Junior Minister, Michael Smith, deliver a rabble-rousing speech to a Fianna Fáil meeting in Edenderry that was as close as anything I have heard to a fascist tubthumper from the thirties. At a different meeting in Wexford, those who were there — and they included Fianna Fáil presidential candidate Brian Lenihan — were no doubt privileged to hear another Fianna Fáil Deputy, John Browne, exhort his members to ensure that Mary Robinson was never in a position "to open an abortion referral clinic in Áras an Uachtaráin". Increasingly, reports are coming in from journalists that Fianna Fáil meetings these days are frightening occasions for the neutral participants.

Members of a political party who can behave like this have clearly lost any sense they ever had of what is true or decent or honourable. It must not be allowed to develop, for the sake of all of us. We had plenty of it in the twenties and thirties but it must stop. It must be stopped by the authority of this House and by the leader of that party, for everybody's sake, before we are into an unstoppable mess. Some Fianna Fáil people will undoubtedly see this as little more than the Party fighting back, in the middle of a Presidential campaign that they are clearly losing. But many more Fianna Fáil, in their hearts, know that this is a debased and degrading form of politics. When politics depends on lies and smears to survive, it is little more than the politics of the gutter.

There has been much talk about the need to restore the credibility of the Government — but surely the fact is that the credibility of politics is more important than the fate of any one Government.

There is an ethos underlying Fianna Fáil politics now. It is that ethos that forced Des O'Malley and others out of Fianna Fáil. It is not the ethos of Seán Lemass, Jack Lynch or George Colley. It is, instead, the ethos so clearly illustrated on the Brian Lenihan "Late Late Show", when the audience was invited to chuckle at stories of how Brian dealt with "a sharp little bitch" who happened to be a nun, or of how gardaí were threatened with disciplinary action for trying to carry out their jobs.

No doubt the same ethos informed the Taoiseach when, as it has been alleged, he rang Áras an Uachtaráin in January 1982 and threatened to end the career of a member of the Army if the officer concerned did not put him through to the President. If it was proved that a member of Provisional Sinn Féin made that telephone call he could be sentenced to seven years penal servitude but when the Leader of Fianna Fáil does it we are supposed to accept it as part of the way we run our politics. Having heard his denial in his speech just now can we assume — and I will be insisting — that he will now institute a Garda inquiry into the matter in order to clear his name? Such a step would carry far more weight than the high-flown rhetoric we have just heard from him.

I said a moment ago that we are supposed to regard all this as the way politics is run in Ireland. I do not and I hope I never do. I believe there are many in Fianna Fáil also who do not. That party can claim credit for many great achievements in the economic and social development of Irish life. It is a party which has been radical in its day and never slow to adopt new ideas. But, in the last 11 years, it has become a party dedicated to the oldest idea in politics — the idea of power for its own sake, vested in the imperial and dictatorial ambitions of its leader. Thus, dissent and even debate has been silenced; all hint of criticism is seen as betrayal; any political campaign waged against the party is seen as anti-Irish. It is one of the most striking features of the modern-day Fianna Fáil that not one of their elected representatives has had the courage to say in the middle of the present mess that enough is enough. Even though privately, many accept that the last week or so has been a tissue of lies and deceit, not one of them is prepared to offer the slightest public criticism. Instead they troop in here this morning like sheep, and applaud the most outrageous and unsustainable utterances of their leader. In the modern Fianna Fáil, even loyalty has become debased to the most shameless sycophancy.

This last week would not have happened in the days of Seán Lemass or of Jack Lynch. It would not have happened if there had been a George Colley or any person of stature and honour left on the Fianna Fáil benches. How can anyone conceive of all this happening in the days of the founder of Fianna Fáil, and the author of our Constitution, Eamon de Valera? But they have all gone, and the party is now dedicated to the greed and unprincipled behaviour of its present leader, who is bent on creating a party entirely in his own image. When the world watched Ceaucescu and Honecker fall, we knew it was because people could no longer tolerate tyranny but how much longer will the members of Fianna Fáil tolerate the internal tyranny that rules their party with an iron hand and that has brought it to a point where it is an object of shame and revulsion for so many?

Speaking in this House on the day this Government were formed, on 12 July 1989, I said the following:

Over the next months and years, two main questions will preoccupy the political system of our country. At least, these two questions ought to be among the principal issues that we face and deal with. It may well be that these issues will be ignored, and that they will be settled by default. It may well be that the politicians we have elected to Government will simply turn a blind eye to them, and allow them to be decided by faceless, anonymous people. If that were to happen, the result would be disastrous, as it has been disastrous in other countries where these issues have arisen.

The questions are these: first, how are the fruits of economy growth to be distributed and, secondly who is going to wield the power and influence of ownership in Ireland in the future?

These are huge and difficult questions. They may not seem at first glance to be the most obvious ones that arise on a day like this but if recent political experience has shown us anything, it has shown us that issues like these must be pushed to the centre of the political stage. Too much of our recent experience has been tied up with defending people against the callous and unthinking consequences of an ill-considered approach to policy. Too much of our recent experience has been tied up with unscrambling the consequences of secret deals and political cronyism. We cannot, as a community, allow the style and substance of this kind of Government to continue.

Little did I know what would arise after that Government were formed and why we are all here today. I believed then that despite the presence in Government of a party who have the protection of high political standards on their agenda, there was every possibility that the style of Government we have come to associate with Mr. Haughey would predominate. And what has happened? Mr. Haughey has stood by while the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad——

An Ceann Comhairle

I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy but Standing Orders of this House ordain that Members shall be referred to by their appropriate titles, of Taoiseach, Tánaiste, Deputy, Minister or Junior Minister as the case may be.

Mr. Spring

A Cheann Comhairle, I take your correction. The Taoiseach, Mr. Charles J. Haughey, stood by while the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, Senator Séan Doherty, completely misled that House, concealing vital information from it in a manner that threatened to pervert the course of natural justice and bring that House into disrepute.

An Ceann Comhairle

Matters appertaining to the other House should not be referred to here, Deputy Spring. It is not usual to do so.

Mr. Spring

With all due respects, a Cheann Comhairle, Mr. Haughey has gone well outside this House this morning in referring to many other things.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Taoiseach.

Mr. Spring

——the Taoiseach. The Taoiseach has, and I intend to follow that course as well.

The Taoiseach was silent while another Member of the Seanad, Senator Seán McCarthy, abused his constitutional protection to avoid a drunk driving charge.

An Ceann Comhairle

Please, Deputy Spring, it is not appropriate that matters appertaining to the Seanad should be referred to in such a derogatory fashion here.

Mr. Quinn

It may not be appropriate but it is very relevant.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Connaughton

A Cheann Comhairle, it is a national matter.

An Ceann Comhairle

I appeal to Members not to refer to matters appertaining to the other House.

Mr. Spring

The matters to which I refer are matters which have left a bad stain on Irish politics and will do so for a long time.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Mr. Spring

Certainly I believe they are worthy of comment in this debate on such a fundamental issue——

An Ceann Comhairle

They should be left to the other House.

Mr. Spring

If I had confidence in the other House I would do so but I do not. The Taoiseach has ignored all the wellfounded allegations of political favouritism that have surrounded the Goodman affair, choosing to attack foreign banks rather than face the reality that his closeness with Mr. Goodman gave one entrepreneur the opportunity to construct an empire built on sand.

The Taoiseach has had absolutely nothing to say while Patrick Gallagher has walked away from prosecution in the Republic. I have here in my possession the report of the liquidator in the case of Merchant Banking Limited. It lists no fewer than 22 areas in which offences may have been committed, including bribery and conspiracy. Questions will always surround this case in which so many people lost their life savings. Yet, the Taoiseach has refused to institute an inquiry into those legitimate questions.

These are some instances only of the way in which this Government have discharged the mandate they received from the people. It is a dishonourable record which we have consistently opposed. It has been said in defence of the Government — and the Taoiseach has repeated here this morning — that they have been successful in economic terms. In that regard, I would have to say nothing has been achieved by this Government, no economic miracle has been wrought without a very considerable price having been paid by many people in our community. In the main, that price has been paid by those least able to bear it. In health, education and other essential services like housing it is the old, the sick and the handicapped who have borne the cost of the so-called economic recovery. In the main, it has been multi-national companies and the financial services sector that have benefited from the economic truth. But, just as the Taoiseach was unaware during the election campaign of 1989 that the health services were in a state of crisis, just as he admitted on radio that he did not realise so many people were in difficulty by way of lack of access to our health services, I can assure him the same awaits him on doorsteps now. There have been no improvements whatever brought about in our health services since the election of this Government.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Mr. Spring

Public housing is facing a crisis. Urgent steps must be taken in that regard but nothing has been done. I do not believe the Taoiseach appreciates the serious mess that awaits him if he goes out on the road from this House today.

The Taoiseach referred in his speech to the new consensus between the social partners that has helped considerably in addressing economic problems but this Government seem intent on destroying that consensus with their programme of privatisation by stealth and with their insidious attacks on public enterprise.

I have no confidence in this Taoiseach or Government. I cannot believe what he or the Government say and I believe there is a majority in this House who would agree with me. Indeed, I believe there is a majority in this country who would agree with that statement. It may be a secret and silent majority or it may not; we shall have to wait and see. In any event, I believe the people of Ireland as a whole have been hurt by the damage done to this country by the events of the past ten days to a point where the people can no longer have confidence in this Government. This Government must go.

Proinsias De Rossa

It is a fundamental principle of our democratic system that we must all accept the verdict of the people given through the ballot box at a general election. Whether we like it or not individually, the verdict must be accepted by politicians and by the people and the Government should, in the normal circumstances be allowed to get on with the job of governing for the period specified by law.

The tabling of a motion of no confidence, which basically seeks to give the electorate the opportunity to decide anew on the membership of the Dáil and the composition of the Government, should be done only in the gravest of circumstances. It should be done only when the Government have been guilty of such incompetence or such misconduct that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the electorate would want to review the mandate they had earlier given to the Government.

Mr. Rabbitte

On a point of order, I wonder if it is in order to inquire why we have only one member of the Government main party — now two — in the House or is there another meeting going on?

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Rabbitte, allow your leader to proceed without interruption. It is not a point of order.

Mr. Rabbitte

I think it is important that the record should show, unless the Nenagh Guardian——

An Ceann Comhairle

Please, Deputy Rabbitte, there is a time limit on this debate. You are eroding the time of your leader.

Proinsias De Rossa

I think the point of information is a valid one. We have here a debate about confidence in a Government which is clearly absent here. In the opinion of The Workers' Party the revelations and disclosures of the past week made the tabling of a motion of no confidence not only appropriate but essential. These disclosures brought to a climax the concern we already felt as a result of the Goodman and Gallagher affairs, the planning scandals, the poverty scandals in our society, the health cut scandals and the whole range of social and economic problems which this Government have failed to address. The way in which the Dáil and the individual parties in it respond to these disclosures will have a profound impact on the future direction of Irish politics. What is at issue now is not just the honesty of a number of Fianna Fáil politicians but the standards and values that the electorate can expect of those in public life and how confidence can be restored in the integrity of the process of Government of this country. Unless appropriate steps are taken irreparable damage will be done to our political system and the sense of cyncism and disillusionment that so many people feel about the Irish political system will be increased dramatically.

What has shocked me most about the past week is not just the disclosures of lies, cover-ups and attempts to intimidate but the fact that so many people within Fianna Fáil have attempted to dismiss these issues as being of little importance. It is likely that had Mr. Lenihan admitted in the first place that he made a call to Áras An Uachtaráin——

An Ceann Comhairle

An Tánaiste and Minister for Defence.

Proinsias De Rossa

Gabh mo leithscéal. It is likely that had Deputy Lenihan, Tánaiste and Minister for Defence, admitted in the first place that he made a call to Áras An Uachtaráin on 27 January 1982 it would have remained a relatively minor issue in the Presidential election campaign. Varying views have been expressed by different constitutional experts as to whether it was proper for Opposition politicians in the circumstances prevailing in 1982 to attempt to contact the President. It would have remained a debating point for constitutional experts and some politicians had not Deputy Lenihan been caught out telling deliberate lies, and there can be no doubt that Mr. Lenihan has——

An Ceann Comhairle

I would ask the Deputy to refer to the Minister by his title of Tánaiste.

Proinsias De Rossa

The title I have already given the Tánaiste, Sir. You do not expect me to produce this mouthful every time I mention the Tánaiste's name.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Standing Orders of this House——

A Deputy

Dáil Deputy and member of the European Parliament.

Proinsias De Rossa

Presumably he will not be Tánaiste by the end of the day if the Fianna Fáil and PD parties have any common sense whatsoever. He now claims that the version of events he gave to Mr. Duffy was untrue. It seems far more likely that the version of events he gave to Mr. Duffy was true and that it is the voters and the general public who were being misled. Indeed, the opinion poll published this morning indicates that the public themselves believe it was they who were being misled.

Deputy Lenihan is not only a Government Minister but holds the important position of Tánaiste as the Ceann Comhairle has pointed out to me twice. His powers are expressly specified in Article 28 of the Constitution. It is the most important Government position other than Taoiseach, and the Tánaiste is specifically empowered under the Constitution to act for all purposes in the place of the Taoiseach if the Taoiseach should die or become permanently incapacitated, and is entitled to act for or in the place of the Taoiseach during his temporary absence. Indeed, we have all seen the Tánaiste come into this House in the absence of the Taoiseach and speak for the Government. Accordingly, when the honesty and credibility of the Deputy Leader of the Government are called into question in such a serious way there is a major question mark over the credibility and honesty of the entire administration. If we cannot believe the Tánaiste when he replies to questions about telephone calls to Áras an Uachtaráin how can we have any confidence in the replies he gives to us as Tánaiste or as Minister for Defence?

The suggestion made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy O'Malley, that this was an internal matter for Fianna Fáil rather than the Government displayed an astonishing degree of naivety. I can think of no other country in Europe in which the deputy head of government would still be in office a week after he was found to have been so untruthful.

However, the issue has now gone far beyond the Tánaiste's own truthfulness. A procession of Government Ministers including the Taoiseach came forward and either in this House or in media interviews specifically denied that Mr. Lenihan made any phone calls to Áras an Uachtaráin when there was in existence a tape recording of an interview given by the Tánaiste in which he freely admitted to making the calls. Some of those must have been aware of the full story of the evening of 27 January 1982. The fact that they so willingly backed up the Tánaiste's story can only lead us to believe that there was a conspiracy to cover up a series of events that eight years on in the midst of a Presidential election campaign has now become a crucial and critical political issue.

One of the most serious and disturbing allegations to have emerged in the last few days concerns the attempts made by a person described in newspaper reports as a senior Fianna Fáil politician to bully and intimidate an Army officer who was on duty in Áras an Uachtaráin that night and who told this politician that the President was unable to take his phone call. At this stage even the dogs in the street know that the senior politician referred to is Deputy Haughey, the Taoiseach. This report suggests that the Army officer in question was abused, insulted, and told his military career would be threatened if he did not do the caller's bidding. This allegation is far more serious than the Tánaiste's calls to Áras an Uachtaráin. If this allegation is true it suggests the person who made the call was prepared to try to abuse his power by destroying the military career of an Army officer who was carrying out the quite lawful and proper instructions given to him by the President. A politician who is prepared to make such threats to an Army officer who refused to do his bidding would presumably be prepared to make such threats again and carry them out if public servants similarly displeased him. Such a person is not fit to hold high office in Government. The Taoiseach must now put on the record of this House a full account of his role in that affair.

The Taoiseach this morning addressed this issue but he left a significant number of questions unanswered. When he says he rejects the allegation, is he rejecting the allegation that he made a phone call or is he simply saying he made the phone call but did not abuse the officer concerned? What exactly is he denying? What exactly is he rejecting? That is not clear and on the record of this House.

Mr. Allen

On a point of order, the Taoiseach fired Mr. Christy Walsh from the Southern Health Board also because he did not carry out his wishes.

An Ceann Comhairle

Please, Deputy.

Proinsias De Rossa

This State has been well served by its Defence Forces. The men and women of the Defence Forces have shown a commendable determination to carry out their duties to the State and to the people without fear or favour and free from party political influences. The verbal assault, threats and intimidation of Captain Barbour, as he then was, strikes at the whole relationship between the Oireachtas and the Defence Forces.

It has been reported that as a result of this incident the President subsequently took steps to protect Captain Barbour and spoke to the then Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Hogan, about the matter. Whatever about there being a log of the telephone calls made to Áras an Uachtaráin on the night in question and I believe there is such a log — there is bound to be a record in the Defence Forces of the meeting between the Chief of Staff and the President — this matter is now of such seriousness, and goes way beyond the question of the presidential election, that it would be in the public interest for that record to be made public.

It has also been suggested to me within the past few days, by a reliable source, that the same Fianna Fáil politician made a personal visit to Áras an Uachtaráin on that January night in an unsuccessful attempt to see the President. While the Army is responsible for matters within Áras an Úachtaráin, the Garda look after perimeter security and control the gates. I also know that the Garda are meticulous record keepers. There is bound to be within the Garda a record of what vehicles and persons were admitted through the gates of Áras an Uachtaráin on the night in question. Again the matter is of such seriousness that the public interest would be best served by taking the unprecedented step of publishing the Garda record of callers to Áras an Uachtaráin on that night.

The events of the past week have focussed attention once again on Fianna Fáil's insatiable lust for power and their willingness to do almost anything to get into power and to hold on to office. They seem to believe that standards and values are something for other parties, and that they must always take second place to their own party's pursuit of power. The whiff of corruption which is never far away from Fianna Fáil, has grown into an overpowering stench.

Fianna Fáil seem to believe that they have some divine right to power and that anything that interferes with that is somehow contrary to the natural order of things. Anything that keeps Fianna Fáil in power and preserves their ability to deliver political favours to their friends is justifiable.

This is not, as some Fianna Fáil people are trying to suggest — especially in the Tánaiste's case — simply a case of the "loveable rogue" being caught out in a minor indiscretion. It is simply a continuation of the traditions of what the late George Colley referred to as "low standards in high places" and which has been a feature of Fianna Fáil practices over many decades. It is not a new phenomenon. It has a long pedigree that can be traced back through the recent Goodman and Gallagher affairs to the telephone tapping of the early eighties and the fine-fixing, stroke pulling and "Tacateering" of earlier decades. It is endemic to Fianna Fáil's political culture. Hopefully the fact that they have been so spectacularly caught out on this occasion will mean that it is also the beginning of the end of that political culture.

Mr. McCartan

Hear, hear.

Proinsias De Rossa

While the immediate factor which caused The Workers' Party to table our motion of no confidence in the Government was the revelations regarding Mr. Lenihan's untruthfulness, the grounds for our lack of confidence in the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Administration go much, much deeper. If it were simply a case of a once-off error of judgement, one might be prepared to grant a "fool's pardon", but these are just the latest in a long line of revelations which have called into question the honesty and integrity of this Government.

Foremost of these is the Goodman affair which has raised the most serious questions about overlapping business and political connections. My colleague, Deputy Pat Rabbitte has, on two occasions — on 28 August and again on Thursday last — spelled these out in great detail in the Dáil. The questions raised by him have remained largely unanswered and the Government, including Deputy O'Malley, have refused to consider the possibility of a sworn public inquiry into the affair.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister for Industry and Commerce.

Proinsias De Rossa

The Minister for Industry and Commerce.

Mr. Ferris

A Cheann Comhairle, on a point of clarification and in trying to follow your rulings about naming people, you did not draw the Taoiseach's attention——

An Ceann Comhairle

I am adhering to the Standing Orders of this House and I will not be lectured by you. You will resume your seat.

Mr. Ferris

A Cheann Comhairle, you have allowed the Taoiseach to do this continuously, including in relation to Mrs. Robinson. You did not ask for a title for Mrs. Robinson. She is a married woman, "Mrs. Mary Robinson"——

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Ferris I will not be lectured by you as to how I should preside.

Mr. Ferris

Well, be consistent. You started with Deputy Spring.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Ferris, if you persist I will ask you to leave the House.

Proinsias De Rossa

A Cheann Comhairle, can you tell me how much time I have left?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is due to conclude at 12.20.

Proinsias De Rossa

Thank you a Cheann Comhairle. The questions raised by Deputy Rabbitte have remained largely unanswered and the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy O'Malley, has refused to consider the possibility of a sworn public inquiry into the affair. It is clear, however, that only a sworn public inquiry could get to the bottom of this financial slurry pit. The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the Goodman affair is that big money, and especially big contributions to political parties, can buy favourable political decisions from the Government.

There is also the Gallagher-Merchant Banking affair in which the unacceptable commercial activities of a businessman with close political connections with Fianna Fáil led to substantial losses for hundreds of relatively small depositors. The decision of a Belfast court to jail Mr. Patrick Gallagher for a two year period illustrates the clear difference in approach to what is called "white collar" crime on different sides of the Border.

While many small depositors in both the Republic and Northern Ireland have lost relatively heavily as a result of Mr. Gallagher's unacceptable activities, those in the North had at least the satisfaction of knowing that the person primarily responsible had been brought to account in the courts. Unfortunately those responsible for fraud and commercial crime — especially when they have the right political connections — are all too rarely brought before the courts in this jurisdiction.

There is also the related matter of the circumstances in which RTÉ last week dropped a programme dealing with the Gallagher-Merchant Banking affair. RTÉ's claim that the programme was deferred pending further legal considerations was unconvincing. The decision was clearly designed to avoid embarrassing Fianna Fáil during the course of the presidential campaign, although it must be said that RTÉ have never shown such sensitivity in regard to programmes which might be critical of other political parties or politicians. The decision to drop the programme is a reflection of the climate of fear created in RTÉ, especially among senior management personnel, as a direct result of continuing intimidation on the part of Fianna Fáil Ministers. If this programme contains matters of legitimate public interest relating to political parties or to politicians and their relationships with Merchant Banking or any of the Gallagher Group of companies, then the voters are entitled to be made aware of that now.

If we are to have a general election, honesty and integrity will clearly be major issues in the campaign, but honesty and integrity mean more than simply a commitment to tell the truth. They involve a commitment to respect the needs of the people. They involve a commitment not to say one thing in Opposition and then do the direct opposite in Government. They involve a commitment to honour promises made at election time.

The entire record of this Government will be the central issue of any election campaign, with special emphasis on the social and economic areas. We will constantly hammer home to the electorate that this Government have failed to significantly reduce unemployment, that emigration reached unprecedented levels during their term of office, and that they inflicted serious damage on the fabric of our society through appalling cutbacks in our health, education, social welfare and local services. A Government can be honest if they simply tell the truth but no Government can claim to have integrity if they fail to make the resources available to provide a proper health service, a decent education system and adequate welfare supports for those in need.

The past week has been one of the most dramatic I can remember during my time in this House. In some respects it has been a sad week, but there are encouraging lessons to be drawn from it. I do not believe there is anyone in this House who does not have a certain degree of sympathy for the personal dilemma in which the Tánaiste has found himself. All who have had any dealings with him have found him to be always courteous and genial. We also know that there are in the current Cabinet those who have been guilty of far more serious offences but who have managed to avoid being called to account. A personal sympathy for the Tánaiste must however be tempered by the knowledge that he has refused to acknowledge the impropriety of his activities or to be honest with the electorate.

We can draw a number of encouraging conclusions from the events of the week. First, it has shown that telling lies does not pay. The opinion poll published today shows that the people are not as gullible as Fianna Fáil seem to assume and that they are quite prepared to punish those who abuse the people's trust. Hopefully it will now spell the beginning of the end of the sort of stroke politics which has been such a feature of Fianna Fáil's political agenda for so long. The most encouraging result is that the best candidate is now quite clearly going to win the Presidential election. The Workers' Party believed from the very beginning that Mary Robinson could win. Today's opinion poll shows quite clearly that Mary Robinson will win, and that can only be a good thing for democracy and for the future development of Irish politics.

In the longer term, whether or not there is a general election, this affair is not going to go away. As far as The Workers' Party are concerned these issues can only be resolved by the resignation from office of the Tánaiste, Deputy Lenihan, and by a full and unequivocal statement by the Taoiseach of his role in the events of 27 January 1982, by a full public sworn inquiry into all these allegations, an inquiry into which all relevant Garda and Defence Force records should be made available. The broader issues raised by the Goodman and Gallagher affairs must be addressed by proper legislation, requiring full disclosure of political contributions made by business or commercial concerns and by the introduction of a code of conduct for all Members of the Oireachtas.

This House has reached a crucial point in the development of our political system. We are at a point where the stroke politics of Fianna Fáil is at last being revealed for what it is and from which this House and indeed the country at large has suffered for so many decades. It is a good day for politics and I hope the Progressive Democrats Party will stand by their declared principles and refuse to continue to support an administration which has within it people who deliberately tell lies to this House.

Dr. O'Connell

The Opposition's motion of no confidence in this Government is a sham and a farce initiated by Fine Gael to cover up their present lamentable poll ratings. With Fine Gael's Presidential candidate, Deputy Currie, trailing in the polls, and their leader, Deputy Dukes, bringing his party to its lowest level of popularity in its history, it was time, they thought, for a smear campaign. All efforts to restore their flagging fortunes had failed and it was widely being predicted that it was only a matter of weeks before Deputy Dukes would be forced to resign. It was even being said that Deputy Dukes expressed a desire to return to Brussels. This was the situation as of ten days ago with the Tánaiste Deputy Lenihan, sailing ahead in the Presidential campaign.

It is here that Deputy Garret FitzGerald comes into the picture. Buoyed up no doubt by speculation in one of the Sunday papers that Deputy FitzGerald might be called upon once again to lead Fine Gael, he decided to raise his profile and go on the "Questions and Answers" programme. Remember this is the same Deputy FitzGerald who brought politics to an all-time low with his so-called "flawed pedigree" speech, and with his implacable hatred for the Taoiseach, he has since carried on a relentless campaign of vilification. This is the man who decided he would rescue the flagging fortunes of his party by low-down smear tactics once again.

Deputy FitzGerald decided he would resurrect the events of 1982 after the fall of his Government and suggested that Fianna Fáil were guilty of something untoward in endeavouring to contact the President. Deputy FitzGerald said he was in Áras an Uachtaráin when the calls came through, but he then retracted that statement and said he heard calls had been made. The question is, which statement is correct, and if he was told a number of calls had been made to Áras an Uachtaráin, who told him? Was it the President or some of his staff? If so, was this not a serious breach of confidence?

I can remember many of the events of 1982 vividly. When Deputy FitzGerald failed in that election he made vain attempts to cobble together a Government but was spurned by both The Workers' Party and the Independents. It was then that he phoned me as I was the outgoing Ceann Comhairle and asked if he could see me. He was prepared to come to my house if necessary at any time during the night. In the event, I saw him the following morning at 8.30 a.m., some hours before the new Dáil was due to meet. Do you know what Deputy FitzGerald proposed? I will tell you what he proposed — that I refuse to go forward as Ceann Comhairle, on the basis that with my refusal to take the Chair, the Dáil could not convene, there being noone else willing to take over as Ceann Comhairle, and such an impasse would necessitate another election. In no uncertain terms I made it clear to Deputy FitzGerald that his proposal was a grossly irresponsible one, with all the dangers to democracy that this would entail. That terminated our discussion. But I want to ask Deputy FitzGerald now, did he contact or attempt to contact the President that night? I think he should clarify that matter today.

I am amazed at the self-righteous pharisaical stance taken by Fine Gael, when to their eternal shame the party were responsible for the forced resignation of an honourable President, Cearrbhall Ó Dálaigh — the only time in the history of the State that a President felt obliged to resign on a matter of honour. Fine Gael should be hanging their head in shame at that disgraceful episode. Remember, Deputy FitzGerald and Deputy Peter Barry were members of that Administration and, on the principle of collective responsibility, were equally guilty. But did we hear any demands by them for the resignation of the Minister concerned for his disgraceful behaviour, or did they even repudiate his actions? No, never. Could there be anything more reprehensible than that this party, Fine Gael, forced the resignation of an honourable President? Now they have the audacity to speak of low standards.

Did Deputy FitzGerald, when Taoiseach, demand the resignation of his Minister for Justice, Deputy Jim Mitchell, who committed the most serious offence of attempting to thwart the course of justice by phoning Ballyfermot Garda station where a constituent of his had been arrested? That Minister should have been forced to resign immediately. Deputy FitzGerald's failure to take appropriate action on that occasion is a damning indictment of him. I am not here to engage in mud-slinging but what I am saying is that the shameful——

Mr. Shatter

The Deputy is making a great attempt at it.

Dr. O'Connell

Indeed I am not. All this has appeared in the papers. I am telling you exactly what I see, that the holier than thous come in here to pontificate and like to say that the offender is on this side.

Mr. Shatter

The speech the Deputy is making is a sad reflection on himself.

Dr. O'Connell

Your record is appalling. The Tánaiste and Minister for Defence, Deputy Brian Lenihan, has been through an ordeal which I hope none of us will have the misfortune to suffer. His recovery was miraculous but it exacted its price. I have never discussed the Tánaiste's health with him except to casually inquire how he was, as so many Members did. However, as a doctor, I can well understand the process of rejection of a liver transplant. You just do not transplant an organ from one person to another and trust that everything will be all right; it is not like that. The body engages in a relentless struggle to reject the new organ, seeking literally to devour and destroy it and it takes the most advanced medical skills and drugs to keep the rejection process at bay. These powerful drugs, administered to protect the transplanted organ, are not without serious and toxic side effects. In particular massive doses of steroids, which were necessary and given at that time, cannot but have blunted his mental alertness. In my humble opinion, this could have accounted for the Tánaiste's strange interview last May for which no other rational explanation can be offered. I am glad to hear that the Tánaiste is now off all these drugs and that their adverse effects are temporary. It may be said here that those drugs are still having an effect but I ask Members to compare it to a person after an anaesthetic, the effect is not permanent.

I am appalled at the crocodile tears which were shed. Deputy Jim Mitchell said that he was very sorry for Deputy Lenihan. Many others said the same and their expressions of sadness and sorrow would win them an Oscar. The Opposition, in attempting to destroy the Tánaiste, now seek to attack the performance of the Government and are proposing a vote of no confidence in them. Their destructive course of action is merely serving to undermine international confidence in the State. Even yesterday the effects of their actions caused an outflow of money from this country.

The Government have an exemplary record of performance which has been widely acclaimed throughout Europe. We have the lowest inflation rate and one of the highest growth rates in Europe, something of which we can be very proud. We have a level of business confidence unparalleled for many years. Compare this with the abysmal years of the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition when business confidence was at an all time low and when the International Monetary Fund was practically at our doorstep waiting to take corrective measures. The kind of Opposition we have is negative, destructive and prepared to take any action — even to the extent of jeopardising our economic standing — to serve their own selfish political needs.

I am proud to have known Deputy Lenihan whose fortitude and courage is a shining example to us all. There is no questioning his distinguished record on behalf of the State. I am proud to stand by him and I will be twice as proud to see him elected President. To those snarling dogs who have scented blood and who are now hell bent on a kill I can only say that they bring themselves even more into disrepute.

Fine Gael have a long record of distinguished service, they are a proud and honourable party with some of the finest members this country could ask for. I am proud to include many of them among my friends but I am appalled at what I have seen in recent years because the party have been hijacked by adventurous mercenaries who will only bring about the party's destruction. I ask the honourable Members of Fine Gael to bear this in mind and to rescue their party from oblivion.

In regard to the vote of no confidence, the people will not thank us for trying to precipitate an election which they neither need nor want. Delving into events of eight years ago will not enhance the prospects of Fine Gael one iota in the election campaign. I will not say anything about the other parties but I have not yet seen them supporting any positive legislation proposed by the Government.

Mr. Kavanagh

That is not true.

Mr. J. Bruton

The House needs to address itself to three questions in this debate. First, does the speech by the Taoiseach answer the material allegations made which have led to this debate? Second, are the issues involved important enough to warrant a motion of confidence and all that that entails? If, in the last resort, there is an election, will it solve the problem? The Taoiseach's speech did not answer the allegations made; the issue is so important that it fully justifies a motion of confidence because confidence equals belief and if you cannot believe the Government you cannot have confidence in them. Third, if Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats — Fianna Fáil in particular — cannot solve this problem, because solved it must be, there is no healthy option facing democracy other than a general election, which will solve the problem by electing a new Government committed to sensible economic policies and to telling the truth within themselves and to the public at large.

To turn to the first question of whether the Taoiseach's speech answers the allegations, it does not. First, there has been a systematic attempt by the Government and their spokesman to mislead the people about this issue. For example, the Government spokesman, Mr. P.J. Mara, made a statement on behalf of the Government. It should be said that Mr. Mara's office is virtually beside that of the Taoiseach and no statement would be made by him without the Taoiseach's full knowledge and consent. The Government spokesman categorically denied that any calls were made by any of those by Deputy Haughey, Deputy Lenihan or Deputy Sylvester Barrett. A Government spokesman categorically denied that any calls were made by any of those people and that a statement was made by a Government spokesman who occupies virtually the next office to the Taoiseach and he does not act without his full consent, and usually, on his instructions. Yet, within hours of that categoric statement by the Government spokesman, former Deputy Sylvester Barrett appeared on television and categorically stated that calls had been made. That is the first line and a very important one.

Furthermore, I draw the attention of everyone in this House to the fact that although the Taoiseach said a lot of things in his speech, nowhere is there an explicit denial that he called Áras an Uachtaráin himself. Nowhere in the speech does he say whether he called Áras an Uachtaráin. Surely, given the notice that the Taoiseach had of this matter, given the fact that at the very outset of the Presidential election campaign Deputy Currie and Fine Gael indicated that the independence of the President would be an issue in the campaign, given that they referred particularly and specifically to the calls that were made, how come that the Government did not until now make any attempt to issue a comprehensive statement about the matter, and how come even at this stage the Taoiseach in the House does not deny that he made the calls? The Taoiseach can get other people to do it for him, as he used P.J. Mara to issue these untruthful statements, but the Taoiseach in his speech avoided answering the question as to whether he called Áras an Uachtaráin. Surely that omission is extremely revealing and indicates that in fact the Taoiseach did call Áras an Uachtaráin. Yet, he is not even yet prepared to face up to the truth so far as that is concerned. It was only when looking a general election straight in the eye that the Taoiseach attempted to issue any comprehensive statement about the matter, in the form of the content of his speech when, contrary to the Government spokesman's statement, he admitted at least that Deputy Sylvester Barrett made such a phone call. Why the delay? Obviously because the Taoiseach thought he would get away with it. He thought that if he postponed the thing for another day people would stop asking the questions.

This version of the truth is the version of the truth that was operable on 31 October. It is not the version of the truth that was operable seven days ago and there probably will be another truth in a week's time, and yet another a week later. That systematic changing of ground, that systematic failure to answer questions, that systematic attempt to mislead is simply not good enough.

This brings me to my second question. Why are these issues so important as to warrant a motion of confidence? I contend that one cannot have confidence in a Government who cannot be believed because every day of the week a Government enter into commitments with international agencies, with other governments and with trade unions and industrialists and people will act on what they are told by the Government. If a Government are to function people will have to believe what they are told by that Government. A Government who change their version of the truth from day to day, a Government who cannot tell the truth and stick by it under pressure are not literally — and I use the word advisedly — able to govern, because telling the truth is the essence of good governance. Unless people can tell the truth they cannot govern.

This coalition Government do not have any viability whatever if one component do not believe the word of the other. If the Progressive Democrats do not believe what the Taoiseach and Tánaiste are saying about this matter they cannot stay in the Government. How can they conduct Cabinet meetings? How can they believe assurances given at Cabinet meetings if they do not believe in the truthfulness of their colleagues? Such a Government riven by internal disbelief, as I believe this Government would be if they continued for another single day, simply cannot govern. I hope the people can accept that. I make that as a practical point and not as a partisan point or a point designed to embarrass anybody. If one does not believe what people are saying how can one work with them? How can this Government operate for another day if the people within it cannot believe one another? That essentially is what a motion of confidence is about.

There is no resolution of that matter outside of this vote of confidence unless in the few hours remaining to them the Fianna Fáil Party in the first instance remove those people who have installed themselves at the very top of the party, but who do not represent and have never represented the essential ethos that lead to the foundation of Fianna Fáil in 1927 — an ethos with which I do not fully agree, but at least an honourable and principled ethos. The people who found themselves, by methods into which I will not go because they are not relevant to this debate, at the top of that party do not represent the essential views of Fianna Fáil or of what the country needs. If Fianna Fáil and their parliamentary party members cannot remove them, the House is faced with no option but to do it for them. That is what this vote is about.

Statements have been made, in an attempt to divert attention, to the effect that this was some type of plot or some type of trap that was set. I have never heard such innocence presumed on the part of the Irish people, as the suggestion that people might believe that. Let me put it simply. An Opposition's job, whether it be on "Questions and Answers", at Question Time in the Dáil or anywhere else where political debate takes place, is to ask hard questions. Fine Gael gave ample warning at the outset of the campaign that these issues of independence of the Presidency would be central issues in our campaign. Fianna Fáil should have been fully prepared for this. All that Fine Gael did on "Questions and Answers" was ask the questions. It was not the questions which caused the problems, it was the answers, the mendacious answers to the questions.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Mr. J. Bruton

It was Fianna Fáil, through Brian Lenihan, through P.J. Mara and all the other acolytes who were trotted out to tell lies on Mr. Haughey's behalf, all those human shields that were used to guard him from well justified criticism, who caused the problem. It was they and their answers, their falsehoods that caused the problem. It was not a plot, not the hard questions, but the answers that caused the problem. That is why we are in the situation we are in.

In a further attempt to muddy the waters and divert attention the Taoiseach engaged in what I would regard as a bullying attempt to take away the reputation of a young research student starting on his working career. The Taoiseach refers to Jim Duffy as someone, "who we are supposed to believe was doing more than researching a thesis." Let me categorically state for the Taoiseach's edification that Jim Duffy was researching a thesis, and doing nothing else. He had no other motive whatever and for the Taoiseach to suggest otherwise is to use the privilege of this House to try to take the reputation of somebody who cannot answer in this House.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Mr. J. Bruton

It is deplorable behaviour which on its own would warrant the Taoiseach's removal from office, let alone his other misdemeanours.

Acting Chairman (Mr. Stafford)

I interrupt the Deputy to remind him that he is due to finish at 21.41 p.m.

Mr. J. Bruton

The Taoiseach went on to say:

However, the Tánaiste was given no such opportunity because the tapes were prematurely released with a statement by Mr. Duffy that he was under political pressure to do so. Political pressure from whom we must ask.

I would like to answer that question. The fact is that Mr. Jim Duffy released those tapes after receiving advice from The Irish Times, an independent newspaper, not in the pocket of any political party, and because P.J. Mara, the Government spokesman named him as having made the tapes and it was because of pressure by P.J. Mara, presumably also on the Taoiseach's instructions, again using his bullying tactic, hoping that if they named him, Mr. Jim Duffy would not have the courage to stand behind what he knew to be the case, and would run for cover, and that somehow or other the issue would be overcome.

The political pressure came from Fianna Fáil deliberately attempting to bully a research student into not defending his own integrity. That was done on the instructions of, I presume, the Taoiseach in the same bullying mode in which he delivered his speech. He will probably attempt to bully the Irish electorate into believing that there is no alternative to his person in this election.

I can tell the House that the Irish people are bigger than any one man and if we have to have an election to clear up this issue the Irish people will make sure we have a Government after that election which does not include the Taoiseach. The Irish people have enough pride in themselves, enough pride in their international reputation and enough belief in the necessity for politicians speaking on their behalf, whether they are in Áras an Uachtaráin or in Government buildings, to be believed that they will make sure that if an election occurs the result of it will be to put Deputy Haughey in a position where he can no longer exercise the influence he currently does on the Irish electorate.

Mr. Lawlor

Deputy Bruton should get out of the old university campus environment of lecturing everyone and fighting for his motions, whether they are fact or fiction, and live in the real world. The Deputy lectured this House at great length during his speech. As the Taoiseach said, Fine Gael do not have a right to truthfulness and honesty and all the other great virtues one would believe, from listening to Deputy John Bruton, they have. The Taoiseach pointed out that the Fine Gael Party are the only party in the history of the country who have hounded and insulted an independent President out of Áras an Uachtaráin, a former Supreme Court Judge who did nothing other than retain the integrity and independence of the Office of President.

As a constituency colleague of Deputy Brian Lenihan I want to make some general remarks on my experience of working in close contact with him in our constituency and endeavour to put in context the events which have brought about this. Reference has already been made to young Mr. Duffy and it took him a hell of a long time — from May until 4 October — to send the details of his paperwork to the Tánaiste, which he received in a letter on 17 October, well into the heat of the Presidential campaign. Any Member who tries to say that there was no well laid plot to create this is not being truthful.

Mr. Shatter

On a point of order——

Mr. Lawlor

This in no way takes from the content of the tape or the honest admission by the Tánaiste about what he said.

Acting Chairman

Deputy Shatter on a point of order.

Mr. Shatter

On a point of order, it is a tradition in this House that we should not normally attack someone who is not a Member of this House and who cannot defend himself. The Ceann Comhairle turned a blind eye to the Taoiseach engaging in his scurrilous attack on Mr. Duffy earlier today——

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Shatter

Each Fianna Fáil Member who has trooped in here continues to cast aspersions on the character of someone who cannot defend himself.

Acting Chairman

The Chair is not in a position to——

Mr. Shatter

It is disgraceful.

Acting Chairman

Sorry, Deputy Shatter, Deputy Lawlor should be allowed continue.

Mr. Lawlor

I ask you, Sir, to rule that that is not in order. I am quoting from public documents.

Mr. Farrelly

We will be able to believe the Deputy because he is whiter than white.

Mr. Lawlor

The Deputy is defending Mr. Duffy who is a native of County Meath and a member of a well-known Fine Gael family. I appreciate that the Deputy is entitled to do that, and I would expect him to do so, but I am pointing out the reality——

Mr. Farrelly

Talk about the reality of what happened; lies.

Mr. Lawlor

I am referring to the position the Tánaiste found himself in when he agreed to be interviewed by this young man. The Tánaiste facilitated him in every way possible and has gone on public record as saying that he embellished the truth in the interview he gave to Mr. Duffy and that much of the content of the tape was inaccurate and incorrect. The Tánaiste has apologised for that and has openly, frankly and truthfully admitted it. Why did it take Mr. Duffy until October, during the heat of the Presidential campaign, to have the neck to ask the Tánaiste to correct and approve material which he knew in his heart of hearts he proposed to use on the "Questions and Answers" programme?

I was in Venice with Deputy Garret FitzGerald on the Trilateral Commission when he got an urgent call asking him to return home because he was needed for the "Questions and Answers" programme. The Fine Gael Party are quite entitled in any campaign to use this type of strategy but it has not improved people's opinion of them. There has been no overwhelming swing to Fine Gael or their Presidential candidate to show that people believe they are absolutely correct and we are wrong on this issue. There is no evidence to suggest that the strategy being used by Fine Gael, and the way they are conducting this campaign, is having any beneficial results for that party.

What they are doing, thankfully from our point of view, is going back to the position they were in in the fifties, sixties and seventies where they went into the side waters of Irish political life and looked as though they were doomed to stay there for the nineties. If there is a general election obviously the Fianna Fáil Party will face it with confidence and determination. A general election should be avoided if at all possible. Some thought we would avoid it by looking for the resignation of the Tánaiste and his clear answer at this juncture was that he will definitely not resign. One could not but sympathise with the Tánaiste. He has apologised publicly for any misdemeanour he has committed and he is entitled to be allowed get on with his campaign. However, Fine Gael, in their misjudged political strategy, have turned this campaign into a personalised mud-slinging operation which I do not think reflects very well on their candidate or will improve his prospects in the election.

One of the issues in this Presidential campaign is whether a Minister with the background and experience of Deputy Brian Lenihan can act independently. As Deputy Bruton pointed out, the Fine Gael Party put that down as a major item early in the campaign. However, they have progressed to the stage where they are trying to establish that there should have been no so-called interference with the role of the President on the night of the collapse of the Coalition Government, that no contact or approaches should have been made to the President about two independent Deputies who might have changed their vote and supported the Fianna Fáil Party. The way that was handled, the communications and the other issues involved are irrelevant to the core issue here, which is: were the largest Opposition Party entitled to try to avoid a general election and was the President of the opinion that, having accepted the message from the then Taoiseach, he should ask the leader of that party to go back to the House?

Deputy Bruton has tried to lecture us on truthfulness but I want to ask how anybody in the international financial community could believe the Government who were in power at that time? How could they believe Deputy Bruton who stood up here budget after budget and misled this House by mismanagement of the finances of the country? How could any international community believe a Government who could increase the national debt from £12 billion to £24 billion? Is that not the greatest credibility problem this country has had over the past 30-40 years? Where was the accountability for all of those issues? Who is accountable for the burden of tax we have had to put on the people since then to try to repay our national debt which was increased as a result of mismanagement by the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition Government?

The reality is that we are confronted today with a situation which cannot be let go unmentioned. Our colleagues in Government, the Progressive Democrats, in their wisdom, have seen fit to put a price on continuing in Government and at this stage it seems that at 7 o'clock this evening there will be a vote of no confidence in the Government and we will be plunged into a general election. If that is the case, so be it. I am quietly confident that following a general election we on this side of the House will resume in some form of Government. From an analysis of the constituencies it does not appear from the opinion polls that we will get a majority but prior to the 1977 general election the opinion polls were completely misleading and indicated that we would never have a majority Government in this country again.

Mr. Cotter

That was the time you destroyed the country and did nothing.

Mr. Lawlor

I do not think anyone on the Fine Gael benches can talk about destroying the country. We have clawed the country back to normality——

(Interruptions.)

Acting Chairman

Please allow the Deputy to continue.

Mr. Cotter

He is hanging himself.

Mr. Lawlor

The Deputy's party have their own internal problems to resolve.

Mr. Cotter

The Deputy is hanging himself; he should keep at it.

Mr. Lawlor

The Deputy has pointed out that we have our problems but we will resolve them in due course. When this debate reaches its conclusion at 7 p.m. we will go to the country with confidence and return to this side of the House because the people recognise good Government. They also recognise that the inertia and malaise of the Fine GaelLabour Coalition of the past was no way to govern the country. Any objective independent observer would have to admit that did not work. This Government are working, but there is a difficulty as of today because six Members who support our party in Government have decided to put a price on their continued support. This appears to me to have been somewhat premature and perhaps the result will be that we will be plunged into a general election, which we all want to avoid — no politician ever looks forward to an election — but I would face it with confidence.

With regard to the Presidential election which is to take place next Wednesday there has been overkill in relation to the position of Deputy Brian Lenihan and his opponents in the other political parties. I think the country will rally behind Deputy Brian Lenihan before next Wednesday. They will realise that an honest decent man has been done a major injustice. That candidate was frank, open and honest enough to admit that he made a mistake and that, in his interview with Jim Duffy he gave all sorts of details in order to embellish the situation for a young student doing his thesis.

The reality is that in a general election campaign we will put before the electorate what can be achieved in the nineties. I also believe that the Fine Gael Party in particular have dabased themselves in this campaign. According to this morning's opinion polls their rating stands at 17 per cent, not always to be believed, but this figure will probably increase marginally. If Fine Gael were the main architects of bringing about this situation, leading the Government to putting down this vote of confidence, do they think they will reap any political reward, or do they really believe, with all these allegations and innuendoes flying around, that they have such a duty to the people?

The Taoiseach gave his answer this morning but it still does not appear to be satisfactory. He has clearly and unambiguously stated in the House that he never insulted or had an argumentative discussion with any member of the Defence Forces. I presume that this means that he has never embarked upon a critical analysis of that man's behaviour at work. This does not appear to be good enough or acceptable.

Acting Chairman

Let me interrupt the Deputy to remind him that he has two minutes left.

Mr. Lawlor

I suppose, because we hold centre stage in Irish political life, we are supposed to chase every allegation in every book and answer the issues, not to create them. Each time references were made to telephone calls to Áras an Uachtaráin the mythology expanded, and it was further expanded by Deputy Garret FitzGerald who claimed eight phone calls were made and he overheard the person on the other end of the telephone. That has been proved to be pure farce and he tried to laugh it off on a radio show as a joke. We look forward to a general election and to a Brian Lenihan victory next week.

Mr. J. Mitchell

I participate in this debate with a great deal of sadness. It is a coincidence that I am following my constituency colleague, Deputy Liam Lawlor, in this debate. I have always found him to be a very honourable person who does not engage in mudslinging, and I am sure he would say the same about me.

The developments of the past nine days are a personal tragedy for another of our constituency colleagues, the Tánaiste, Deputy Brian Lenihan. Far from gloating on these events, no Member of the Dáil can but feel genuine sadness. It is now history that the sequence of events began to unfold on the RTE television programme "Questions and Answers" on Monday, 23 October. Given what the Taoiseach said today and what has been put out by successive Fianna Fáil spokesmen, it is absolutely essential that the true facts, and nothing but the facts in relation to that programme be put on the record of the House and be made known to the public.

It will be recalled that all three candidates had been invited to appear together on a single "Questions and Answers" programme. It is our understanding that all three candidates had accepted that invitation in principle but that Deputy Lenihan withdrew subsequent to the three way debate on "Saturday View" on RTE Radio 1 on Saturday, 18 September when the general impression was that he had not performed well. That was a fateful decision, on behalf of Fianna Fáil, to withdraw from other three way debates. If the Tánaiste had been allowed to go on with the other two candidates, the sequence of events which then followed would not have taken place.

Following the Fianna Fáil decision to withdraw Deputy Lenihan from that three way "Questions and Answers" programme, RTE proposed three separate "Questions and Answers" programmes with one candidate appearing on each. It was also proposed that each of the candidate's national directors of elections would also appear once but in separate programmes.

As Deputy Bertie Ahern withdrew from the "Questions and Answers" programme he was to have appeared on with Deputy Austin Currie and was substituted by a senior Fianna Fáil backbencher, I decided to do the same the following week, not for any Machiavellian reason, as has been ascribed by the Taoiseach in the House today and by others, but because national directors of elections are very busy people in the middle of election campaigns. Accordingly, I decided to invite Deputy Garret FitzGerald to take my place on the "Questions and Answers" programme with Deputy Brian Lenihan on Monday, 23 October.

As all Members of the House are aware, each panellist is allowed six tickets for the show and I nominated six Fine Gael members to be present. Likewise, both Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party had their six nominees present. I presume that these parties, like Fine Gael, briefed their respective panellists and six ticket holders on the questions likely to be raised. In planning the questions and in briefing our representatives, we were making no more than proper and well considered preparations and we state categorically that (1) we had no prior knowledge of the existence of the Duffy taped interview and (2) we had no prior inkling that the Tánaiste would answer the questions in the way he did.

That issue of contradictions by Fianna Fáil and the attacks on Deputy Garret FitzGerald by Mr. Haughey are the only dirty tricks——

Acting Chairman

It is normal practice to refer to him as the Taoiseach.

Mr. J. Mitchell

——by the Taoiseach are the only dirty tricks operating in this campaign. Since Deputy Haughey took over the position of leader of Fianna Fáil that party have been embroiled in a succession of scandals which have besmirched that party and caused a great deal of humiliation and embarrassment to a good percentage of their members. In making that point, I reiterate that it never was our intention to say that everybody in Fianna Fáil shares the same standards as have been demonstrated by some of their leaders in the past 11 years. Indeed, it is those very scandals which led to the breakaway of Deputy O'Malley, Deputy Harney, Deputy Wyse, Deputy Molloy and others and the formation of the Progressive Democrats Party. I can well understand in the passion and emotion and the self-defence of the moment that people such as Deputy John O'Connell and Deputy Lawlor would be sent in to the House to spread the muck as wide as they can in self-defence, but they know in their heart of hearts that a majority, at least, of Fianna Fáil members see that their party has been hijacked for 11 years and brought into the gutter time and again not by any foul Machiavellian plan of the Opposition but by their own misdeeds and omissions. Far from showing any contrition for the events of the past ten days and for the repeated contradictions, members of Fianna Fáil have sought to defend the indefensible and to do so frequently in a way, led by the Taoiseach to break every rule of parliamentary order and procedure.

It will be recalled, Sir, that when I said in this House, in anticipation of the Broadcasting Bill, that I believed the Minister for Communications — in a reply to a question in this House — had misled the House, I was ordered to withdraw from the House. I did not say he had deliberately misled the House nor lied to the House, I did not say he had told untruths but I said he had misled the House. For that offence, which I understood was within Parliamentary order, I was asked to leave the House. As events turned out, my line on that day in the Dáil was vindicated. Compare that with the words the Taoiseach has used during the past several days. In the Dáil he has used language which is an extraordinary bad example to every other Member of this House. There is a total disregard for the traditions of Parliament as well as for its Standing Orders.

If we have a general election arising from this motion of no confidence, the blame lies entirely with the Fianna Fáil Party for their inability to come to grips with the ghastly mistake and compounding mistakes that have been made in the past nine days. Over the past three years, I have often thought about how the media in general could have assumed that the Fianna Fáil leopard had changed its spots. During the past two or three years, the Taoiseach has been treated as if he could do no wrong and that the past was over and could never recur. We can understand these ups and downs of political life and the ups and downs of political comment. What I can never understand is that reputable newspapers like the Sunday Business Post, The Sunday Tribune, Sunday Independent and others with very serious journalists, have in editorial comment and in features frequently given sole credit to Fianna Fáil — and in the last year to Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats — for the economic recovery. They have stated categorically in editorials and in other features that this Government have brought about low inflation, economic recovery and balance of trade surpluses.

This election, when the dust settles, will be about economic stability and economic progress but the realities are that on any detached analysis the foundations for economic recovery and growth were laid before 1987. By 1985, we had inflation down to 3.4 per cent and we have maintained low inflation ever since. An inflation rate of 3.4 per cent in 1985 was half the rate of inflation in Britain in that year, whereas when Deputy FitzGerald took over as Taoiseach in 1982 our rate of inflation was twice the British rate: it was 21 per cent. The foundation stone of economic stability and growth is low inflation. That was brought about by Deputy FitzGerald's Government of which I had the pleasure of being a member.

When Deputy FitzGerald came to Government we had a balance of trade deficit of £1,800 million in that year, the biggest ever in our history. By the time he left office, we had a balance of trade surplus, the first in 40 years. That was another turn around provided by Deputy Garret FitzGerald. They are two key achievements by the FitzGerald Government but there were many more. For instance it is fashionable to believe that it was Deputy Haughey's Government who started to reduce VAT rates and income tax rates. On the contrary, it was the FitzGerald Government who reduced the top VAT rate from 35 per cent to 25 per cent and, indeed, the top income tax rate down to 58 per cent.

The Taoiseach talked this morning about all the development that is taking place. He talked about the Tallaght Town Centre and other places. The reality is that most of the development is going on, in areas which are designated under the Urban Renewal Act, 1986, which was introduced by my colleague, the former Deputy John Boland. Again, it was Deputy FitzGerald's Government who laid the foundation for this development in the designated areas; nobody can dispute that. It was an imaginative policy which is now showing results. Moreover, all the major road construction programmes which have since materialised were all decided in the programme, Building on Reality 1985-1987. These are uncontestable facts. I am not trying to pretend that there were not failures of that Government, of course there were, aided and abetted by an obstreperous Opposition who encouraged every single interest group to oppose the rational policies of the Government and to seek more.

Mr. M. Brennan

Who was in Government?

Mr. J. Mitchell

It is important in looking ahead to this campaign, if we should have such a campaign, that uppermost in the minds of every Member of this House should be the future of this country and the absolute need to get sufficient economic stability and economic growth so as to provide worth-while employment for all its citizens at home. I do not believe that any Member of this House — much less any party in this House — can rest complacently with the extent of our emigration during the past number of years or that we can congratulate ourselves on the great economic euphoria, which some commentators see, when so many of our people are unemployed and so many more are in Boston, Sydney, Birmingham and London. I do not think we can rest complacently and pretend that there is economic utopia here when we have so many problems in our hospitals and in our schools.

Let the debate not be about lies, counter-lies and allegations; let it be about the real issues but above all else, it has to be a debate about credibility. When we say something can we be believed? If we come into this House and answer questions, can we be believed? When we deal with other parties or other Governments, can they believe what we are saying? Can the financial institutions believe what we are saying? To sum up, can there be continued confidence that this country has the mettle and the vision to sort out its own problems and to provide for all its citizens equally?

Mr. Cowen

As things stand we are facing a general election. The Opposition claim this motion has been put down because of credibility. It would have been possible to put down that motion after the Presidential election but the Opposition decided to put it down this week. One can gauge from that that the Opposition seek to increase whatever political capital they can gain from the events of the past week by introducing this new motion on the basis of what they claim is credibility. While we are in the political system and when mistakes are made we will always attempt to make whatever political capital we can from it. This issue is not about who phoned whom when. We are about to plunge the country into an election which nobody wants. This is verging on irresponsibility because it is not in the interests of the country to discuss this motion at this time. There will be political difference on that but that is my pure political judgment regardless of the outcome.

When we talk about credibility we must bear in mind that the first thing that would be said to us by our constituents is, "Isn't this incredible?". It will be incredible because the issue before the House is not a timely issue or vital to the interests of the nation. It is open to the political parties to put down this motion at any subsequent time. We now have two issues — the Presidential election and the general election.

Deputy Dukes will have all the evidence he requires in recent opinion polls to show that the vast majority of the people do not believe he is a credible alternative to the Taoiseach. Vituperation has increased in recent debates since the Broadcasting Bill and I have seen many Deputies on the opposite benches going very close to the wind in terms of allegations which were beyond the norm in political debate. What I find incredible are statements of those Opposition spokespersons who have used the privilege of this House to make allegations, not about people in the political arena but in some cases about people outside that arena. If the logic is that when an unsubstantiated claim is made which is not defended in this House it should stand, then by the same token if people are prepared to make unsubstantiated allegations using the privilege of this House and they do not repeat them outside the House, they remain unsubstantiated allegations. I refer to the speech made by the Tánaiste in the no confidence motion put down against Deputy Ray Burke as Minister for Communications. He displayed political maturity in a debate which was bereft of such contributions, with some honourable exceptions, that by Deputy Higgins amongst them.

It is incredible that the people are to be asked to contribute to political instability. That is precisely what they are being asked to do. It is incredible that experienced politicians on the opposite benches who have been making political capital with some success from events in the previous week have come to the conclusion that the people want a general election. I entered this House six years ago at the age of 24 in tragic circumstances. I find it difficult to see people who shed crocodile tears about emigration, joblessness and the lack of opportunity voting for this motion at this critical time, when we have a Government preparing to enter negotiations with all the social partners to decide how we can move ahead by consensus. Those people believe they can credibly stand before the electorate and claim to do things better. They are creating a crisis of confidence not in this House but in the country. We are not here for our own sake or to seek some supporting role in a developing political soap opera. We are here to serve the people, those whom we speak about as lacking jobs and opportunity.

Mr. Cotter

That is what the issue is about as well.

Mr. Cowen

To what extent will that crisis of confidence in the country contribute to the solution of that problem? That is the credibility issue today. The people should be allowed to make their decision on the happenings of the past week when they go to the polls next Wednesday. The people will make their decision and everybody will abide by it, not least the candidate who is being portrayed here today as something he is not. He is not anything other than a decent honourable man.

We are told that this motion is about the style of Government. I was in this House in Opposition between 1984 and 1987. I recall a style of Government which produced major economic policy documents. Members of the Labour Party were members of that Government. Was one trade union leader asked what he thought? Was one CEO from the health boards invited by the Minister for Health to discuss health problems? Was one farm organisation asked in to sit down, not to be told at a major press conference that this was the new reality document? It was an autocratic Government, although I do not seek to denigrate the personalities in that Government. They did not seek consensus on the major issues and move ahead with a sense of give and take, getting away from platitudes and smart talk, and they did not begin to do anything for the people who had problems such as the jobless and the young. That is what politics is about and it is the reason why I am in it.

I do not intend ingratiating myself or countering arguments which have been made in the House or outside it. I have no intention of so doing. I think a little bit more of myself and of the intelligence of the Irish people to do so. I have been canvassing and I know what people are saying. They are not saying it to journalists or broadcasting people but to me, their public representative. I know what the problems are. In terms of priority their problems is certainly not who phoned whom when. In 1984 when I came into this House the question I was asking was, who employed whom when. I need no lectures from anybody in my own party or any other party about my job in this House. I will not have my honour challenged by smear or by generalisation. I will not have the honour of my party challenged. Neither will I have the honour of the people whom I represent challenged. Certainly I will not have the people who participate in the parliamentary doemocracy — with no cheque at the end of the month — challenged.

What is the political crime? If one asks constitutional lawyers — and I ask the House to find two or three who will agree on any given subject — what is the political crime they will say there is no explicit denial in the Constitution — in that unprecedented set of circumstances — disallowing a Member of an Opposition party consult with the President on the basis that he is available if he wishes, in his absolute discretion, to use his powers under the Constitution.

Dr. G. FitzGerald

Why deny it then?

Mr. Cowen

It does not impinge on his discretion. I am not interested in old battles between Deputy FitzGerald and anybody else. Deputy FitzGerald has had his day. He served his country as best he could and the people took their decision. I am here to represent them hopefully in the nineties and beyond. If I make onetenth of the impact Deputy FitzGerald made in whatever contribution I can make, however ineloquently I may express it, I shall be happy. But I am not prepared to stand here and listen to what happened over eight years ago. Everybody outside this House wants to know what will happen in the next nine months and nine years. I am not prepared to listen to recent converts to parliamentary democracy endeavour to impugn me in that respect either.

I will say this: yes, the Tánaiste over-emphasised his role on tape to a political student; that is quite clear. I would ask any Member of this House — if he or she can endeavour to get off their high horse — did he or she ever under-emphasise his or her role in relation to a constituency matter? Did he or she ever under-emphasise their role in terms of bringing employment to their constituency? Did he or she ever under-emphasise their role in any of the legitimate activities in which a politician engages? It should be remembered that it is not one politician's credibility only that is at stake here. The way in which this whole debate has unfolded has meant that politics are being undermined because we are not allowing the people take a decision on the issue that arose last week. Let the people take their decision. The House should not underestimate their intelligence in that respect either.

Regardless of the political capital that can be made in any circumstances, all of us are here to make a positive, constructive contribution. If we are not in a position to do so, then I have no longer any interest in remaining in this House. I will say this: I am a third generation Fianna Fáil man, one who came down from the North of Ireland many years ago. I know that everybody in my constituency with whom I am associated is an honourable man and woman. Having given the matter some consideration I say that the Tánaiste is the same honourable man who was in my house some 30 years ago beginning a Seanad campaign.

I will make my opinion very lucid for the House. If I am given a choice between pegging out 33 years of public service and a misleading, over-emphasised role on tape to a political student — about whom I know nothing and have no intention of saying anything — that will be a sad day for Ireland. There is something crazy if that man's honour is to be impugned on that issue. Many Members of the House present have been a long time in politics and know that he is one of the most decent men who ever walked into this House. I will not stand over the malevolence of some people who perhaps do not realise the type of man about whom they are talking.

Mr. M. Higgins

It is very important in the debate that takes place today that what takes place in this House should not interfere or intervene in the remaining stages of the campaign that is going on separate from any consequences of today's vote which might entail a general election. I hope that the distance between that campaign and a general election and a campaign for the Presidency can be respected. Nonetheless, it will be difficult. I want to say very little about that campaign for the Presidency except in relation to one matter. I want to concentrate what I have to say in these few minutes on what has now evolved from being an issue that might have been resolved into a major vote of confidence in the Government.

The point I want to make about the Presidency is this, that the candidates who are in the field — and I participated in the famous programme which gave rise to our present discussion — are people who have in one way or another, in their political experience, attempted to offer a good content to their version of public service, and I said that. But, in recent days, the scurrility of the allegations made against Mary Robinson, the candidate nominated by the Labour Party, has been absolutely disgraceful. People have been speaking here about standards on one side and those on the other. She is one of the three candidates who is not a Member of either House of the Oireachtas. Members of these Houses have stood up in public — in the presence of their candidate — and asked the people what they thought of the consequences of voting for somebody who might have an abortion referral clinic in Áras an Uachtaráin. How can people speak about standards in politics when one makes such a statement in the presence of one's own candidate, and that statement is not disowned?

I have to say — because Deputy O'Connell was drawing on his medical experience, and I listened with interest to what he had to say — that my experience has been as a political scientist. I recall occasions — when reading in history — when senior figures in the Fianna Fáil Party walked off platforms when lesser figures made the kind of remark that may have been repeated in other parts of the country. In so far as we have just been invited to let the people make up their minds with regard to what will happen on Wednesday next, I invite the people to make up their minds on those kinds of remarks. No doubt the Deputy who made that remark will be back saying: you know, anything goes in an election. That is why we are where we are today — the "anything goes" kind of political culture which has brought us to this very sad day. That political culture, which I have heard described, is one which has had in recent times an increasing authoritarian content.

Indeed, I remember the reaction of the media over my time in politics, when they used sometimes to attack the parties of the left for disagreeing publicly. That was seen as an aspect of weakness, that there would be different opinions and debates going on within parties. The contention was: why can they not manage to stick together in some kind of tribal loyalty so that they will all sing the same song no matter what their thinking or what they are doing. That prevailed as the political culture within the largest party of Government for a very long time until circumstances evolved in which nobody could write a song except one person, when listening to and supporting speeches in this House was really like listening to the tones of the tuning fork set off when everyone said the same thing — one speech after another. In these difficult economic times in which we find ourselves, when at last the nation's finances are coming under control, everyone has the same mantra.

That party have never allowed dissent, individual opinion, intelligent ideas and so on, and those who were happy with that version moved to the Front Bench and those who might have wanted to have an independent view on anything moved to the back benches.

That authoritarian political culture had a dreadful effect on the nature of politics itself. It was not questioned very seriously except by long standing political journalists like Dick Walsh and others, but it led to the acceptance of another dangerous myth that was that there was one party in this State that would always be near Government or form Governments, a kind of "divine right to rule" party, and this myth permeated our society. I am making no allegations about names, events or dates, but I want to say this poison and rot went deep into Irish society.

In my time in politics people have come to me complaining about forms of interviews for VEC positions, for positions in different aspects of the public service and so on. I have always found that to be appalling. The curious side effect of this has been highlighted in the poll rating of the Government up to this and the large vote for Mary Robinson. The public want a new kind of political culture; they want the windows thrown open; they want fresh air. They want a kind of symbol which will be both progressive and open, that will not be based on the nod, wink or nudge, meeting so and so and so on. That is what they want and I respect their opinion.

If the Government think they are going to go to the country and secure a mandate after the awful events of recent times I assure them that there will be quite a job of conversion to be done. The public will not be blackmailed by something like: "If you reject us who were used to doing whatever we wanted who will you vote for? There is nothing else on offer. Bad and all as we are, should we not be allowed to continue?" That kind of argument is singularly seedy.

What began as a question about events many years ago could have been resolved at the very beginning. There could have been a response to an article in the newspapers last September. There could have been a frank admission on what took place on the television programme. There could have been a statement afterwards. All these opportunities were lost — not lost — rejected through arrogance. The feeling was we can brazen it out and this arrogance was not confined to the realm of the Presidential election. It was brought into this House by Ministers and Government spokesmen who said: "I can unequivocally state this".

Leaving aside — I am not ignoring it — the appropriateness of what had happened, there were many ways this could have been ended but they were all rejected because of this machismo the Government like to display. The idea is we will just say it never happened, raise our voices and so on. This was not a mistake, it is just brazenness.

The people have had enough and they will show it. The only difference between the position this evening and the position last week is that the people will be able to show Fianna Fáil twice in the space of a couple of weeks what they think of them and they will not be put off by anyone saying they are sorry to have to bother them when they knock on the doors asking for their vote. The people know it is one of their sovereign rights to vote, and they will have to vote again and again. The people also have a right to question the atmosphere surrounding the Presidency and they will not give away that right. I have listened to the statements made and I found them interesting. Is it not a pity that we should be so concerned with these issues but that we are going to imperil a superb economic performance?

I have deep regret for the position in which the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence, Deputy Brian Lenihan, finds himself. I am one of the longest standing spokespersons on Foreign Affairs in this Dáil and my interactions with him were always marked by courtesy and helpfulness, but I am much more worried about what has happened. It was appalling, it was bad, but worse were the people who surrounded him and put these denials on top of what was already dreadful. I do not have to speak about making telephone calls to the President, how awful that is and the constitutional dangers involved, but I want to answer this nonsense that is going on.

It has been said that the economy is doing so well it would be a pity to draw our breath for ethics, and this is what it is all about. People are saying: let us not go on about soft things like ethical standards and appropriate behaviour in politics. Let us get on with some real washing the economy, as the advertisement says.

The reference for performance the Taoiseach used was the IMF. That speaks for itself. It relies for indicators of success on inflation rates, interest rates, export levels and the public borrowing requirement, but look at all the Ministers because this is a motion of confidence in the Government. There is a Minister for the Gaeltacht who promised a television service but will not speak Irish. The Minister for Defence is already central to this debate. A Foreign Affairs Minister insults the House by not giving us accountability through a foreign affairs committee. A Health Minister presides over beds in corridors. An Environment Minister presides over the collapse of public housing. A Social Welfare Minister tells us there is no poverty. There were many references already this morning to the Justice Minister. The Communications Minister is the same person who turned his face against the concept of public service broadcasting. The Minister for the Marine presided over the loss of millions of pounds in the tourism industry through the rod licence dispute. Ministers for Energy and Industry and Commerce are missing and it is very interesting that their message to us is relayed by a Fianna Fáil backbencher who is no longer in the House.

The truth is there is no question of there being a neutral management strategy for the Irish economy. There is economic success for what can be called the depeopled economy, the economy measured without talking about its people. You can say it is successful as a mechanical entity, separate from the people and by doing that you can ignore emigration, poverty, unemployment, housing, health standards, and I forgot the Minister for Education and the crowded classrooms who says to everything she is asked, "Let us have a cup of tea".

This has evolved to a vote of confidence in the Government. As I look at all these empty benches, and aware of the empty policies, I have no reluctance in voting no confidence in this Government.

Minister for Justice and Minister for Communications (Mr. Burke)

I am pleased to have the opportunity to address the House on this motion of confidence in the Government. The accomplishments of this Government and of its predecessors since 1987 have been nothing short of phenomenal. It would be well to review the situation which faced the nation before 1987 to see why the people should have the utmost confidence in this House and why this Government deserve a vote of confidence in this House this evening.

The condition of this nation before 1987 was a most pitiful one. Whatever European survey conducted during the period one wished to choose, Ireland always found itself at the bottom where benefits were concerned and at the top where disadvantages were concerned. Into this scenario came the Fianna Fáil Government of 1987. I was a member of the Government at the time. They were faced with a near impossible task. They had been left a country which was both financially bankrupt and devoid of any sense of confidence thanks to the criminal ineptitude of the previous Coalition Government which had been led — and I use the term euphemistically — by Deputies Garret FitzGerald and Dick Spring.

In a few short years their Government, while preaching financial rectitude, had managed to double the national debt ensuring that every man, woman and child would spend the rest of their lives paying for that Government's profligacy. They mismanaged the nation's finances, driving our people, especially our young people, away from their homes in hordes. It is interesting to listen to Deputy Michael D. Higgins speaking as if emigration had only been discovered since 1987. It was not admitted before 1987. I recall question time after question time when the Ministers of State at the Department of the Taoiseach stood up and categorically denied what was obvious to everybody who knew anything about it. Deputy Michael D. Higgins, who was so sanctimonious in his address here today, supported that Government right through their period in this House.

Mr. Cotter

The Minister should get his statistics right. He has the whole thing upside down.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Burke

While they mismanaged the nation's finances and drove our young people away from their homes in hordes, interest rates ran sky high, inflation was uncontrolled, businesses collapsed all around the country and money poured out of this country. They claimed that theirs was a socially motivated Administration but crime was rampant. They claimed they had solved the housing crisis in Dublin; indeed there was no crisis because there were no people. They had been driven out of their schools and jobs and houses and on to the boats in the darkness of the night. When this was pointed out to them they denied that emigration was happening at all, refusing to raise a finger for the many who had fled, especially those who went westward undocumented and unwanted.

Mr. Cotter

How many people left since 1987?

Mr. Burke

What of investment? The greatest plight our people were facing was unemployment, but there was not one serious proposal on the books of the IDA when Fianna Fáil assumed Government that year.

The sheer bankruptcy of that Government in its ineffectiveness was monumental and yet they lost no opportunity to preach to the people about how they should not expect things like secure jobs or a safe society. Investment by private enterprise was unethical according to that Government. Emigration did not exist and the Fine Gael/Labour view was that we were a poor country and should not expect that we could be anything more.

Mr. Shatter

The Minister is an example of what is wrong with Fianna Fáil.

Mr. Burke

We have had a Fianna Fáil Government since 1987. This nation has seen its balance of payments come back into some sense of proportion. Interest rates came down and levelled off. Inflation rates came down to the lowest in Europe and exports reached record levels month after month. Emigration was recognised and imaginative proposals were put forward to create jobs to keep our people at home. Our employment figures are showing now that real inroads are being made in job creation. We have benefited from three years of a very successful national understanding and all the social partners are preparing in good faith to again strive for a consensus which, in the long run, will be for the good of the whole country.

At home investment is on an upswing. Our currency is strong, our interest rates are dropping, and our inflation rate is the envy of Europe. Business confidence is such that it has stood up to the dire predictions of German reunification and the world-shaking events in the Gulf. On the international level the successful recent Irish Presidency of the European Community has drawn kudos from all as being effective and constructive at a time when Europe was going through what I shall call the happiest of revolutions.

Ireland has gone from being the poor man of Europe to being a country with great pride and determination. As Irish people we know that we can now tackle our problems and overcome them. That confidence is the legacy of the present Administration and what a marked contrast it is to the dire and depressing aspects imposed on this country by the FitzGerald/Spring Coalition.

With regard to my own contribution to the present Government I turn to the Department of Justice. Since taking office as Minister for Justice in July last year one of my top priorities has been to ensure that the Garda are equipped and deployed so that the ordinary citizen can live in peace and security. To this end my objective has been to have as many gardaí as possible out on beat duty on our streets where they are most needed. Last November I announced one of the most powerful crime fighting packages ever put together in aid of the Garda Síochána, and the Garda Síochána have willingly acknowledged this. Since then I have acted with determination to ensure that the various elements of the package are quickly implemented to ensure that maximum benefit is got from it. Apart from the extra gardaí, the extra trainees and the extra civilian help and the promotions of gardaí to strengthen the management of the Force I have ensured, with the approval of my colleagues in Government, that adequate funding has been made available to provide for the Garda needs in the form of vehicles, equipment, computers, overtime and training, including a massive £16 million investment in the Garda College in Templemore of which the first phase is completed. I have given active support and encouragement to the Garda Commissioner in extending the community policing concept. When I took up office as Minister, gardaí were involved in a number of these projects and this has now been extended.

As evidence of the success of what I have been doing, I can quote from the 1987 report on crime which shows there to be an overall decrease of 3.1 per cent in recorded indictable crime in comparison to 1988, when recorded crime in the Dublin metropolitan area showed a decrease of 7.8 per cent. Armed crime showed a decrease of 22 per cent from the figures of 1988 and there were a record 1,562 drug seizures.

Before concluding my comments on the Garda side, I want to congratulate the Garda Síochána on the excellent work they are doing and in particular on some outstanding successes they have had in recent months. They can be assured of my wholehearted support and that of this Government whether this be by way of providing them with the resources they require to carry out their duties or by defending them from the unfair and unjustified attacks from no matter how senior a level in Opposition parties in this House. I can assure them of that support and of the support of the Government. These attacks are made on them from time to time by very senior people who should know better and from whom they should least expect it.

To come to the events which led us to address this confidence motion in the House today, it is not so much a question of confidence in this Government as much as answering one of the most snide, sinister and dishonest smears upon a public representative in the history of the State. It is said both inside and outside this House that the Irish public do not hold their public representatives in great esteem, respect or appreciation. I ask you, a Cheann Comhairle, how could this be otherwise when we have seen Members of this House on the benches opposite conduct their business by deceit, baiting and sheer slander?

That Brian Lenihan who agreed to give an interview to a student of a certain member of the Upper House who failed to regain a seat in the last election, was a man who had dedicated himself to Irish public service for the last three decades. That Brian Lenihan had served as a local representative, Senator and Deputy. As a Deputy he has served under three Taoisigh, held nine Ministries in Fianna Fáil Governments since 1964 and, as expected of any public representative, he was always available to his constituents. This meant that his home was always an open house; his time was never his own and his family were obliged to assist with elections, constituency concerns and countless other duties which absorb a public representative. That Brian Lenihan has served in more senior Cabinet positions than any other current Member of this House. That Brian Lenihan has been responsible for a wide range of notable legislation which included a Bill which has done more to provide justice for women in this State than any other legislation, with the exception of the vote itself. That Brian Lenihan played his part in providing educational opportunities for a far greater number of Irish people by fulfilling Donough O'Malley's promise, with comprehensive, community and other postprimary educational facilities and by initiating plans for what are now the Universities of Dublin City and Limerick.

This is the Brian Lenihan who was the first to address the enlarged Council of Ministers shortly after Ireland joined the European Community. This is the Brian Lenihan who secured Structural Funds allocated to Ireland under the umbrella of the European Statutes and who was Minister for Foreign Affairs when Ireland first took up membership of the Security Council of the United Nations. This is the Brian Lenihan who worked with US representative Brian Donnelly to secure legitimate status for our emigrants in America when they were being ignored by Fine Gael and Labour in Government. This Brian Lenihan is the one who provided a representation for the members of our Defence Forces and implemented the pay recommendations of the Gleeson report. This is the Brian Lenihan who for many international statesmen is the very face of Ireland and of the Irish people.

I have known this man for 30 years, from before I became a public representative. My earliest memories of him are of a friendly, kind-hearted man who always expressed a willingness to offer advice or be helpful. This is not a man who would lie to the Irish people whom he has faithfully served for 30 years but rather he is a man of honesty, integrity and high honour, and Ireland would be graced to have him as her President.

There is simply no candidate in the race for the Presidency of our country who has had as much experience or done as much for as many Irish people as Brian Lenihan. This is the situation which Members on the opposite benches could not tolerate, Members who were not concerned with who would come first with the Irish people in this Presidential campaign but who would be second or third. This is a campaign which began with only one party having a selection procedure to choose their candidate. One of the candidates was simply imposed by a party leadership who now speaks of low standards in high places. Perhaps he has not too far to look. The remaining candidate was an unwilling and late draftee, a member of a party whose leader was obliged to travel to the candidate's home in County Tyrone to plead with him to condescend to run for the highest position which Ireland has to offer. These are the alternatives to Brian Lenihan offered to the Irish people, an imposed candidate and a draftee.

When the campaign began Fianna Fáil underlined their candidate's experience, his loyalty and his integrity, which everyone agrees is unimputable. Fine Gael decided to explain why the Irish people should vote for Austin Currie by telling them why they should not vote for the other candidates. Brian Lenihan's sterling qualities of experience, loyalty and integrity were turned inside out and used against him. First of all Brian Lenihan's loyalty was held up as questionable. Never before has loyalty been a virtue which was held up to doubt and question, but for Fine Gael loyalty is something for which contempt should be felt. When the old song was ignored Fine Gael turned their attention to the other candidate, the red card was played, but two weeks later the Fine Gael candidate was seeking a meeting to discuss vote transfers.

In the last week we have seen the Members opposite recount with relish how they devised their plot against Brian Lenihan. By their own admission there has been use of Fine Gael activists as moles, well rehearsed plants on television programmes and political pressure. With the hysterical denouncements of Fine Gael no one has been able to contemplate the utterances of Garret FitzGerald who claimed to have been in Áras an Uachtaráin when calls were made, who implied that he heard very good imitations of members of the Fianna Fáil Front Bench and, less than 24 hours later, claimed he was not in the building at all. Of course, this is the Garret FitzGerald who has such great concern for the institution and the independence of the Presidency that, as a senior member of a Government in the seventies, he participated in driving an independent President from office. This is not the first effort by the former leader of Fine Gael to smear and slander. We had the dubious pleasure, as early as 1979, of hearing the previously best known of his offerings when Charles J. Haughey assumed the leadership of Fianna Fáil. I am certain it is reassuring for many of those who long for the bad old days over which he presided that he has not lost his talent for half truths, duplicity and innuendo.

Brian Lenihan gave an interview. His mistake was that he did not inquire what the political allegiance of his interviewer and his mentor was, and so better prepare for an interview which may be turned against him. His mistake was that while still recovering from a near fatal illness he did not seek more time for himself and refuse requests such as these for interviews which were of little or no benefit to him. His mistake was that as a busy Minister presenting historical legislation before this House he did not prepare for the interview by checking his facts and recollections before facilitating the student.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Sorry, Minister, the time is up.

Mr. Burke

I have one final comment.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Please use the word "finally".

Mr. Burke

Brian Lenihan made a mistake, that is true, and it is now up to the Irish people to decide whether that mistake should interfere with his election to the Presidency after 30 years of public service. Should his mistake outweigh that 30 years of service he has given to the Oireachtas, the nation and to his people? I know that all good-thinking Irish people feel, and I am confident, that this controversy will be resolved in accordance with the people's will, namely, that Brian Lenihan has proven himself more than ever to be worthy of the highest office in this land. I confidently suggest to you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, that no sane person wants a general election at this time here and I ask for support for this motion.

Mr. Shatter

I have listened——

Mr. McCartan

On a point of order, I do not wish to quibble unnecessarily with the Chair but I had understood on the arithmetics of the House that it was now the turn of The Workers' Party to contribute to the debate.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is entitled to an explanation. The situation is that the debate moves from Government to Opposition. The Fine Gael Party, because of their numerical strength, have two slots as against one for the other parties. Deputy O hUiginn was the last to speak for the Opposition and Deputy Shatter is entitled, on that basis, to be called now.

Mr. Shatter

I have listened with great sadness and astonishment to the speeches we have been subjected to in the House today, by the Taoiseach, the other contributors from the Fianna Fáil side and lastly by Deputy Burke. One would have hoped that the lessons of the past week would have been learned and understood and that we might have had a different approach from the Government benches today. It appears that from the Taoiseach down there is not a single member of the Fianna Fáil Party who understands the importance of telling the truth in public life. It appears there is not a single member of the Fianna Fáil Party who understands the essential primacy of Parliament and the need to ensure that things said in the Dáil by Government Ministers and by the Taoiseach are true.

This debate is not simply about Deputy Brian Lenihan, Minister for Defence, having a casual discussion with a student. This debate is about the fact that the Taoiseach, the Minister for Defence, the Minister for the Environment, the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Labour in succession misled this House as to events that took place years ago. For most people outside this House what took place in 1982 is largely of academic interest but it is of some importance to those of us who want to practice democracy here. Many people outside this House regard it as being of historical interest. What is of importance is whether people who are currently in Government can be relied on to tell the truth. What we have seen during the past very strange and bizarre eight days is that the people who are in Government at present cannot be relied upon to tell the truth.

The Taoiseach in his contribution today gave a very guarded and ambivalent account of events. It is noticeable what he omits from his speech as opposed to what he includes. He does not deny that he phoned Áras an Uachtaráin in 1982.

Dr. FitzGerald

He does not now deny it.

Mr. Shatter

He does not deny that Deputy Lenihan, the current Minister for Defence, phoned Áras an Uachtaráin in 1982. All he says now about that is that he thinks the Tánaiste did not speak to the President. We have a different account of that on Mr. Duffy's tape. The Taoiseach did not have the grace to come into this House and admit that last week when he accused Deputy FitzGerald of lying he was misleading the House, and very deliberately so, by trying to throw up some sort of parliamentary smoke-screen to cover up the gaffe and the untruths that had taken place during the course of the Presidential election campaign. A bigger man, a man who had a commitment to telling the truth, would have come before the House today and said: "When I attacked Deputy FitzGerald last Thursday I was wrong; I made a mistake".

Debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended at 2 p.m. and resumed at 2.30 p.m.