It is proposed to take Items Nos. 2, 14, 15 and 16. It is also proposed that Item No. 2 shall be decided without debate. Private Members' Business shall be No. 23.
Order of Business.
I take it that the proposal that Item No. 2 be decided without debate is agreed? Agreed.
Has the Taoiseach any proposals to reshuffle his Cabinet?
That does not arise now, Deputy.
A Cheann Comhairle, I am sure that you, Sir, and every Member of this House, is aware of the attempt by the Government Press Secretary last evening to associate me with the Telecom scandal. I can only assume that he was acting on behalf of both parties in Government.
I want to challenge the Taoiseach to avail of the earliest possible opportunity to come before this House and stand over those assertions which I know to be both untrue and impossible. I say to the Taoiseach that, on failing to do so, his last vestige of credibility and honour will be gone.
I take it that the Deputy is anticipating certain questions he has tabled to the Taoiseach for tomorrow? We should await those questions.
A Cheann Comhairle, is it not correct that the Taoiseach was trying to damage two members of his own Cabinet in spreading that rumour, the Ministers for Finance and the Environment?
Deputy De Rossa is offering.
I rise to seek your advice, Sir, on the question of your disallowance of a question to the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications with regard to Aer Lingus Holidays, a question tabled by Deputy Sherlock. You ruled it out of order on the basis that the matter was sub judice. Yet, in a paper this morning, the Minister responded to questions from a journalist on this matter. It seems quite extraordinary that the Minister cannot——
The Deputy gave me no notice of his intention to raise this matter. Otherwise I might have given him a considered reply. In any event, he may not challenge my rulings in this fashion; he knows that. I have nothing to add to my statement in the matter.
I am sure you do not, a Cheann Comhairle, because I have a letter of reply from you also. As you have on numerous occasions advised this House that your office is always open to discuss with Deputies matters of concern to them, I wrote to you last weekend raising five matters I sought to discuss with you. You wrote to me saying that it would not be appropriate for me to hold a meeting with you to discuss the matters raised in my letter. I am placed in the impossible position in which, as the leader of a party in this House, I have been effectively snubbed by you in relation to matters I sought to raise with you privately.
This is truly uncalled for. The Deputy has even now referred to private correspondence between us.
I am prevented from raising matters with you on the floor of the House. Now I am prevented from raising matters with you privately in your office. Therefore, what avenues are open to me?
I have replied to the Deputy in respect of his private letter. I have nothing to add to it. If he wants to make it public, he is quite at liberty to do so.
A Cheann Comhairle, I regard my position as intolerable and intend to take the matter up with the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. That appears to be the only way I will get satisfaction in relation to the matters about which I am concerned.
The Deputy is quite entitled to proceed along those lines.
On a point of order, Sir, may I ask whether you consider the Taoiseach to be answerable to this House by way of parliamentary questions for the activities of the Government Press Secretary, who is a civil servant, in view of the fact that the Taoiseach refused to accept a question from me——
Deputy Bruton knows full well I have no responsibility in respect of the transfer of questions. That is an internal matter for the Cabinet, and always has been.
On a point of order, Sir, may I ask whether the Taoiseach is answerable to this House for the activities of the Government Press Secretary?
That is not a matter for the Chair.
Surely if announcements are to be made or rumours are to be spread by the Government Press Secretary, someone must be answerable.
Members of this House should keep the Ceann Comhairle out of political matters. I will not be involved, in any event.
Is it not the case that your office refused a question to the Taoiseach on the grounds that the Taoiseach was not answerable for the Government Press Secretary's activities? If the Taoiseach is not answerable for the Government Press Secretary——
Deputy Bruton will find another way of raising that matter, I am sure.
Is it not the case that the Government Press Secretary is acting as a professional character assassin on behalf of the Taoiseach?
This is language that should be reconsidered.
Is it not the case that Mr. P. J. Mara is acting as a professional character assassin on behalf of the Taoiseach and is being paid by the taxpayer to do so?
Please, Deputy Bruton. A reflection of that kind on a person outside this House should not be made.
I am deliberately making that reflection on Mr. P. J. Mara.
Deputy Bruton should rethink that.
I am making the assertion that Mr. P. J. Mara is being used by the Taoiseach——
Please, Deputy Bruton. Do not proceed along those lines. The Deputy is reflecting on the character and integrity of a man outside this House who has no redress against accusations made here. This is a privileged Assembly and it is wrong to make such comments. The Deputy will desist.
What the Taoiseach is instructing the Government Press Secretary to do is wrong.
I feel it strange that Deputy Bruton would dare come into this House and talk about character assassination.
(Interruptions.)
It is not strange at all, having seen, as all Members of this House have seen, what the Taoiseach instructs the Government Press Secretary to do.
Deputy Bruton will have to restrain himself. I am calling Deputy Quinn.
Minister Reynolds and Minister Flynn are very quiet on this issue and they have been involved in granting renewal development status to this development.
In view of the fact that local authorities throughout the country do not know the level of their rate support grant, despite the fact that they were to be told last week and in view of the fact that health boards cannot write cheques, I would ask the Minister for Finance and the Minister for the Environment when local authorities will be informed of their rate support grant? Is anybody doing anything over there?
Let us proceed with these matters in the normal way. They are more suitable for questions than for the Order of Business.
In the normal way local authorities would have been notified last week but they have not been notified. Is there a crisis in the Government with regard to the Estimates? Local authority services throughout the country are in a state of total paralysis because this Goverment have not informed them of their level of rate support grant.
There are many ways of pursuing that matter in the House but not now.
Maybe somebody over there knows the answer. Is there anybody at home?
I would ask the Taoiseach if the very important Comptroller and Auditor General legislation is to be published this week, since the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the 1990 Appropriation Accounts is about to be published.
I can only repeat that it is intended to publish it very shortly. There are no obstacles in the way of its being published.
I am loath to raise this matter because on the last two occasions it was raised the Dáil collapsed. The Taoiseach might inform me when the joint committee dealing with the Altamont (Amendment of Deed of Trust) Bill 1990, will be formed. Could he possibly give a guarantee that we will get through it this time?
I understand it is under way at the moment.
I wish to raise the matter of the Minister for Justice's recent instruction to the Garda to reroute tourist traffic away from certain areas of the city.
That does not arise now.