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.