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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 6 Dec 2000

Vol. 527 No. 4

Private Members' Business. - Government Policy on Taxi Licences: Motion (Resumed).

The following motion was moved on Tuesday, 5 December 2000:
That Dáil Éireann, recognising the obligation of the Government to implement the judgment of the High Court that taxi numbers can no longer be restricted, deplores the attempt by the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science, Deputy Willie O'Dea, to undermine the High Court judgment and his ministerial colleague by calling on taxi drivers to resist both the decision of the courts and Government policy, and calls on the Taoiseach to remove Minister of State O'Dea from office.
–(Deputy O. Mitchell).
Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:
"–fully supports the initiatives taken by the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, in relation to the taxi industry, namely, the making of new orders for the industry and supports his efforts to provide a better service for the travelling public;
–calls on the Government to continue the implementation of the regulations over the coming weeks and notes that Minister of State Deputy O'Dea has reaffirmed his support for Government policy on all matters including the Government's policy in relation to taxis; and
–further notes the Government's commitment to a process of dialogue with existing licence holders and its readiness to provide special tax allowances and an administrative scheme in relation to certain licence fees by way of mitigation for appropriate cases."
–(Minister for Education and Science).

I propose to share my time with Deputy Gilmore. I spoke last night about the debacle surrounding this issue and the fact that a lay person could have seen that it was discriminatory to issue 3,000 plates to existing plate holders. It was inevitable that the judgment would find that this route could not be taken and now we have full deregulation of the taxi service.

My party and I do not believe this is the route to take. Full deregulation has not worked in other cities and some areas have had to reregulate. This is really a Dublin problem, which is something we should look at; the taxi service has worked effectively in other cities but we have had queues in Dublin for many years. The taxi forum would have produced 3,200 licences by 2002. In Melbourne, a much larger city than Dublin, there is a proportionate number of plates and yet its taxi system works effectively. Why do we have the queues when we would have had a sufficient number of plates? The answer is quite simple: certain taxi plate holders have not been using the plates, particularly at night. We know there are problems for taxi drivers at night and that is the reason they decided not to come out. We need proper regulation to ensure that those who own plates will actually use them. It is still possible for the Government to introduce legislation. The court judgment does not preclude that. It could introduce the legislation and we would then have a proper taxi service in this town.

The other problem is that the taxi service is often seen as a replacement for an inadequate bus service. People may use public transport to come into town but then they are left stranded. Throughout this city, and in my constituency we have seen cutbacks in essential bus services. Recently, the No. 13 bus service in my constituency has been cut back, yet we are trying to encourage people to use public transport but they have to use taxis. The taxi service should not have to be used in that way. If we had proper regulation we could then have a GPS system, as they have in other cities, and people could get to their destinations quickly. Taxi drivers would know when there were people in the area who required a taxi. Recently, a colleague of mine was in Stockholm and was amazed at the way the com puterised system worked. It was able to tell the driver immediately, who simply keyed in the destination to be informed how to get there quickly. The system could indicate when the next person in an area required a taxi. That is the sort of system we need.

Also, from an environmental point of view, taxis should be regulated to such an extent that they would run either on LPG or compressed natural gas. That is the way they are run in other cities. If we are to have thousands of taxis on our streets, that would make sense from an air quality point of view.

Another problem is that our bus lanes could become clogged up if there are too many taxis. We have to be honest with ourselves and ask the question: when does regulation work and when does deregulation work? In terms of deregulation we have seen instances elsewhere in relation to buses, and particularly in Britain where it simply has not worked. Were we to adopt the same system in relation to additional buses, it would be a recipe for chaos because it would be more or less a free for all. A free for all solution cannot work. We must ensure that we have an integrated system and that we have proper public transport. That requires huge investment. Similarly, we must upgrade the taxi service properly so that people can use the taxi service.

We need proper regulation of our taxi service. Throwing numbers at the problem is not the solution. I have my doubts as to whether this proposal will work out in the long term so I ask the Minister to rethink it because I am sure that in a number of years, we will have to revisit this issue. This is a short-term solution but in the long term it simply will not work.

While the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, is the Minister named in the motion, this motion is about striking a blow at the kind of double speak that has become the hallmark of this Fianna Fáil Government. To be fair, we all engage in a bit of double speak, and double speak is not confined to politics. It can be used from time to time by people in churches, journalists, trade unions, business people and so on. When one looks at the PPF and the Good Friday Agreement, it can, on occasion, be used with good effect but this Fianna Fáil Government has made double speak a kind of official political dialect.

There are good reasons Government should speak not like the Tower of Babel but with one voice. The principle of collective responsibility is not some kind of an archaic convention. It is there so that the public can know and be clear that when Government speaks, it speaks with one voice, that it is providing clear leadership and that there is not confusion in relation to public policy. Every Minister and Minister of State who has ever been appointed to Government knows that if one takes the shilling, one follows the drum, accepts and honours the principle of collective responsibility and does not make public utterances that are in conflict with Government policy.

Why should we in the Opposition be so concerned that the Taoiseach, Deputy Ahern, appears to be intent on leading a particularly double speaking, double crossing Government where a Minister cannot be sure that he or she will not be publicly shafted by a colleague if an issue of public policy becomes a bit too hot to handle? We have had a succession of examples of that. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, called publicly for public protest against the policy enunciated by a colleague Minister. It is not so long ago since another Minister described as a shambles the Government policy on asylum and immigration. The Taoiseach is a bit of a Mairtín Ó Cadhain in relation to the kind of double speaking political dialect we have come to expect from this Government. If the going gets rough, for example, in relation to a budget, he will have no difficulty in disowning the Minister for Finance. If there is a gaff in the Minister for Finance's budget this afternoon, we can expect that the Taoiseach will not have read the budget and will not have seen it and that, when questioned about it on Thursday morning, he will tell us he will have a quiet word with the Minister to try to sort it out.

The reason we are concerned about it is that the double speaking performance of this Government has left many areas of public policy in a mess. The reason we have no taxis on the streets of Dublin as we approach Christmas is that Government has been engaged in double speak. While pursuing one official policy, Fianna Fáil has been sending a signal to taxi drivers that it will look after them and it was the perceived failure of Fianna Fáil to look after the interests of taxi drivers that now has the taxi industry so angry and withdrawing its services as we approach Christmas.

Similarly, the reason traffic is snarled up in this city is that of the double speak of Fianna Fáil in particular on the one hand officially pursuing a policy which is aimed at increasing public transport while, on the other hand, giving nods and winks to vested interests in this city which have delayed the appearance of Luas and quality bus corridors and kept the traffic of this city snarled up.

We have a similar problem in relation to housing policy in that again we have public utterances from Government and a public declaration of policy that it is in favour of people being able to buy and own their own homes while, at the same time, it is pursuing in practice a policy which favours land speculation and vested interests in the building industry and in the building professions. We had an example of that last week with the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Deputy Ned O'Keeffe, who, in any other country, would no longer be a Minister of State with responsibility for food. I cannot think of a better contrast to the Minister of State than the former Minister for food in the United Kingdom, Edwina Curry. As she nibbles on her scrambled eggs this morning, she must be wondering, as she reads The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Irish Independent, or whatever Tory newspaper she reads, why the Irish Minister with responsibility for food is still in office and why he has not started writing his first racy novel.

I wish to share my time with Deputies Wade and Killeen, if that is agreeable.

On Thursday night, 23 November, I addressed a large meeting of taxi and hackney drivers in Limerick. I now realise that some of the remarks I made at that meeting were intemperate, insensitive and insulting to my colleagues and I wish to take this opportunity to apologise unreservedly to the Tánaiste and to the other members of the Progressive Democrats, particularly the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, for any offence caused. I have always had an excellent working relationship with my Progressive Democrats colleagues and hope that it will continue.

I wish to dispel a report in last Thursday's Irish Independent of a stand up row between me and the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy. I state unequivocally that the report was a work of fiction, worthy of Roald Dahl, author of “Tales of the Unexpected”. The row did not happen. I cannot recall it and the Minister of State cannot recall it. It exists only in the fevered imagination of the journalist who wrote the story.

I make it clear that, whatever my private views on this issue, I fully support Government policy on deregulation. I subscribe fully to the notion of collective responsibility. Having studied Mr. Justice Murphy's judgment in full, I realise there are legal constraints which prevent the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, or any other person occupying that position from having one regime for taxis in one area and a different regime in another area.

In saying that, I refute with all the strength at my disposal the accusation made by certain opinionated newspapers columnists and Members of the House that I said one thing privately in Limerick and something else publicly in Dublin. One can also speak publicly in Limerick. I cannot understand how addressing a meeting of 400 people in Limerick can be said to be speaking privately. I agree with Deputy Olivia Mitchell that one cannot segment and give different versions to different audiences. I know that and do not need Deputy Mitchell to tell me that. I find it more difficult to understand how an interview on local radio in Limerick can be said to be private and not accessible to people in Dublin. I find it even more difficult again to understand how an interview with a local newspaper which has mass circulation in the mid-west and is available in the Oireachtas Library, namely, the Limerick Leader, can be said to be speaking privately or giving a different message in Limerick. I gave those radio and newspaper interviews before this controversy arose.

In so far as the remarks attributed to me about not knowing that I was being taped are concerned, all I said is that if I had known my remarks were being taped and directly transmitted to the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, and others I would have moderated my tone and been less offensive and insulting. This is not an earth shattering admission and any reasonable person would also admit this.

Last night in the House Deputy Owen accused me of condoning or encouraging illegality. People are protected by privilege in the House and I want Deputy Owen to withdraw that scurrilous and untruthful allegation. I want her to withdraw that remark before the debate concludes or repeat it outside the House. I want to make it perfectly clear that I took great pains in my speech in Limerick to say that I did not condone illegality, that I would not ever condone it, and that taxi men in Limerick and other areas were entitled to make peaceful protests within the law. I did not condone illegality. That section of my speech did not appear in the tape publicised by RTE and if I were a person of cynical disposition, which I am not even at this stage, I would say that the reason RTE omitted this section from its broadcast version is that it would have taken much good out of the story. I am not cynical, so I will put it down to time constraints. However, the tape is available for anyone who wants to listen to it. If the section where I told them I did not condone illegality and to desist from any further illegality were included it would give a very different tone to the speech.

Hypocrisy has permeated this debate from start to finish. I want to give some examples. Last Tuesday, 28 November, taxi drivers from outside Dublin met in the Mont Clare Hotel. That meeting included a large contingent from Limerick. All rural TDs were summoned to the meeting. One of the first people to accept the summons and to address the meeting was the senior Front Bench spokesman for the Opposition, Deputy Noonan, who represents Limerick East. I do not know whether he is the leader in waiting or the lost leader, but it is irrelevant to me.

Lectures on hypocrisy from the Minister of State are very difficult to take.

Did Deputy Noonan attend that meeting of angry Limerick taxi drivers in the Mont Clare Hotel to tell them he stood foursquare behind deregulation, that they would have to accept their fate, that he agreed with Government policy and that the Government was correct? To paraphrase and moderate the tone of a famous Mr. Bailey in another context, "did he, hell". Deputy Noonan was quoted in The Irish Times on 29 November as saying that Limerick was different from Dublin and a separate case would have to be made for Limerick. He was extremely worried about taxi drivers in Limerick and the implications of deregulation for them.

Last night I did not notice anyone in Fine Gael referring to Deputy Noonan's performance. I have not noticed any attempt to rebuke Deputy Noonan or to remonstrate with him. More important, I have not noticed any move by Deputy Bruton to cause Deputy Noonan's resignation. It will probably be shortly the other way around and everybody I know in Fine Gael dearly wishes for that consummation.

Deputy Michael D. Higgins made a statement which was directly contrary to Labour Party policy as I understand it. When he spoke in Galway Deputy Quinn stood up and pointed the finger to Limerick. There was not one word about Deputy Higgins directly contradicting Labour Party policy on deregulation. He is still on the Labour Party Front Bench and there has been no contradiction of what he said or no effort to say that his remarks were contrary to Labour Party policy. I want to give another example of hypocrisy.

Deputy Noonan was not the only Deputy from Limerick East to attend the meeting. Deputy Jan O'Sullivan obeyed the summons and scurried down to the Mont Clare Hotel as fast as her legs could carry her to be greeted effusively by the taxi men as she gushed sympathy all over them and joined them for tea. I seriously doubt that she told them she supported deregulation and they would have to accept the fait accompli. I call on Deputy O'Sullivan to clarify her position on this issue in the House. I will also challenge her to do this in Limerick.

In apologising to my colleagues in the Progressive Democrats I also want to apologise to my party for any embarrassment caused. I specifically extend that apology to the Taoiseach for whom, as everyone knows, I have a high personal regard. The only mitigating factor from the Fianna Fáil point of view is that I am a mere junior officer in the great army of Fianna Fáil. Deputy Yates may laugh—

This is hilarious.

—but worse still is the position of a party whose leader and deputy leader have become little better than a national joke.

Last night Deputy Owen spoke in very harsh terms about me. Is this the same Deputy Owen who established the unenviable reputation of being the worst, most ineffectual, lamest and most useless Minister for Justice without exception in the history of the State? If unlimited prize money was made available to people to name one achievement of Deputy Owen in office it would remain forever unclaimed, like the £1 million in the RTE version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire". Her blunders are international folklore.

She stood over Government decisions.

We remember the Urlingford disaster, the Dominic Lynch cock-up, the Duncan extradition fiasco, the cancellation of the prison programme, crime being out of control and Garda morale shattered. The Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, I and others came into the House night after night and called for her resignation as Minister for Justice as she repeatedly damaged the administration of justice. We all know the reaction – she remained firmly wedged in position on the Government Front Bench, supported uncomplainingly by everyone from that man of integrity, Deputy Bruton, to the Trotskyite tendency. The excuses were always the same – she did not get her post, she did not understand the technicalities and people were keeping things from her. Ignorance was always the defence. If Deputy Bruton is such a man of integrity how could he keep such an ignorant Minister of Justice in office for two and a half years in charge of the Department responsible for the maintenance of law and order.

Last night Deputy Gormley correctly wondered what all this is about, how I had become such an important person as to warrant the use of the Private Members' time of the main Opposition party. The answer to this lies in Deputy Owen's speech. She was upset about the articles I write for certain national newspapers. I will make a deal with Fine Gael. If the party stops telling lies about me, I might stop telling the truth about it.

It is extremely ironic to be lectured on party loyalty by the dynamic duo of Deputies Bruton and Owen, both of whom are immaturing with age. If Deputy Bruton, and by extension Deputy Owen, who is Deputy Bruton's creature, had even a shred of loyalty to their party, they would stand aside, leave the stage and at least give the party a fighting chance. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Fine Gael has the capacity to produce a leader – I am looking at Deputy Yates – and deputy leader who might be marginally more popular than the whooping cough.

At a recent Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting, Deputy Belton, who regularly entertains us from the Opposition benches, called on Deputy Bruton "to look in the mirror", in opposing his leadership. I presume the same injunction applies to Deputy Owen. If Deputies Bruton and Owen can bear to look in the mirror they will see a pair looking back at them whose re-election as leader and deputy leader of Fine Gael caused uninhibited celebration and joy in the households of every Fianna Fáil supporter from one end of Ireland to the other.

I do not take the protestations of the Labour Party too seriously. I note the restrained tone of Deputy Gilmore's contribution. I also note Deputy Quinn's personal circumstances and I sympathise with him. A number of different versions of policy have emanated from the Labour Party and, therefore, I cannot take anything it says too seriously.

I return to the thrust of the Fine Gael approach, which is to present the Taoiseach, one of the most successful in the State's history, as weak, vacillating and ambiguous in dealing with recalcitrant colleagues and Deputy Bruton as a man of integrity who is strong, decisive and predictable and who is the antithesis of what the Taoiseach might be.

Let us examine Deputy Bruton's integrity. When Deputy Lowry's position was exposed, Deputy Bruton's initial instinctive reaction was that it did not matter what he did, whether it was tax evasion, murder, mayhem or rape because it happened before he was appointed Minister. Ultimately, public opinion forced Deputy Bruton to get rid of Deputy Lowry. When the final break occurred and Deputy Lowry resigned from Fine Gael in March 1997, Deputy Bruton professed himself to be so scandalised by Deputy Lowry's activities that he said he would not even request his vote in the event of a hung Dáil. However, three years later Deputy Bruton says Deputy Lowry, a proven and admitted tax evader, is welcome back into the bosom of Fine Gael. Where is his integrity?

When the late Deputy Coveney's activities first came to light – I do not want to be hard on him as he is deceased – Deputy Bruton deliberately waited 36 hours to ascertain which way the wind was blowing and then in the words of one of his own colleagues, Peter Barry, "he moved him sideways".

Deputy Bruton was on record time and again saying he would not do business with the former Workers' Party because of his suspicion of its subversive past. Having made such statements he then jumped into bed with the party when his political survival was at stake. He has now come full circle and has apparently extended an invitation to Arklow's own Che Guevara, Councillor Nicky Kelly, to join Fine Gael. The party fought tooth and nail to keep Nicky Kelly in jail but now it is prepared to welcome him into Government. I presume this is Deputy Bruton's secret recipe to make the trains run on time.

Deputy Bruton gave evidence on oath to the McCracken tribunal regarding the fundraising activities of his party. He also gave evidence on oath about the same events to the beef tribunal. The problem was that the two versions of the evidence were diametrically different. Deputy Bruton presided over a Government from which more Ministers resigned in disgrace than any Government in the history of the State and that does not count those who should have resigned but did not.

Deputy Yates was kept on in Government despite his claims to be able to bi-locate.

My record on BSE is now standing the country in good stead.

The Deputy came into the House and stated he negotiated with Russians at Dublin Airport while he was sitting in a pub in New Ross.

Ireland has the best record on BSE in Europe.

I did not know his head was that big.

The Minister of State should stick to his grovelling apology. He is a disgrace.

Deputy Bruton presided over a Government of which Deputy De Rossa remained a member after he misled the House about advertising a position in a policy unit in the Democratic Left news letter. When Fine Gael realises that Deputy Bruton's integrity is bland, broad and is not sufficient to get over his charisma deficit, it says he is an original thinker. If so, he is the only original thinker in the history of civilisation who has succeeded in keeping all his original thoughts firmly to himself because nobody has ever heard him utter one.

The Minister of State has some bright thoughts.

Deputy Carey, the intellectual from Clarecastle, has come back to the House.

Order, please.

The Minister of State is hypocrite of the year. He has one thing to say in Limerick—

Keep up the pressure, lads.

—and another in Dublin. This is a grovelling apology.

I will give Deputy Bruton, and by extension Deputy Owen, some unsolicited advice. He should get his act together, begin to look like a leader and set out his vision for Ireland in the 21st century.

I thank the Minister of State for the advice.

According to the ESRI, the Government has brought about economic revival to the extent that Ireland is living through an economic gold age, but prosperity also generates problems.

Does the Minister of State remember Barrington's Hospital?

The late Deputy Kemmy was right.

Order, please.

If Deputy Bruton wants to discharge properly his responsibilities as leader of the second largest political party he should offer constructive support to the Government where he agrees with its policies.

Like the Minister of State.

Where he disagrees with the Government—

Will the Minister of State support the Government?

—he should feel free to slug it out and essentially he should act as a leader and by extension, so should Deputy Owen.

Like the Minister of State. If he believes in the cause of the taxi drivers, he should resign.

Confucius should have said "He who puts snail over substance is doomed to failure".

The Minister of State should tell the people working in Shannon about the snail.

I exhort Deputies Bruton and Owen not to fritter away valuable Private Members' time on nonsensical motions. If they do not follow my advice and begin to act like leaders the people behind them will remove them. We, in Fianna Fáil, would grievously feel their loss.

The Minister of State voted the wrong way.

The constituents of Limerick East are in doubt as to where they stand on this issue. They stand behind the hard work which the Minister of State and all of us in Fianna Fáil have done for Limerick East.

And against the Government.

The Minister of State's record at national level has already been presented to the House.

Will a copy of this speech be made available?

I take this opportunity to outline the work he has done for Limerick.

He is the greatest martyr.

Listen to the man with the big head.

The number of people on the live register has fallen by an almost staggering 50% since the Government took office. In 1997 more than 11,250 people were on the register while the most recent figures show that more than 6,000 people are signing on. That is a real improvement for the people of Limerick, which the rainbow Government could not match. It had its chance but it failed.

If the Opposition parties had the same team in any constituency that Fianna Fáil has in Limerick East, they would not rate so poorly in the opinion polls and in the judgment of the people.

Hear, hear.

This contribution will read well in the Limerick Leader. Who wrote it?

While Fianna Fáil, the Minister of State and myself concentrate on improvements in roads, houses, schools and health care for the Limerick people, the Opposition concentrates on bluster and PR.

Send the Minister of State to Clonlara.

It should spend more time on policies, listening to the grassroots and on the public service and less on spending the precious time of the Dáil on cheap publicity stunts it knows it cannot win. The Dáil is for making laws to improve the lives of the people, not for publicity stunts. It is time for Fine Gael and Labour to think beyond tomorrow's "Morning Ireland" and The Irish Times. They should think about the people who put them here. They should give us policies, not public relations, valuable input and common sense, not more Celtic snails and the same old champagne socialism.

The Opposition has clambered on to the high moral ground once again to hide the fact that it has no sensible policies. Fine Gael relaunched its ridiculous year-old Plan for the Nation last month. It still wants to build new cities on the basis of 30 year old plans and develop towns on the basis of regional favouritism. Labour still has its mad health policy and would shut local hospitals. It also has a financial policy which would raid the pension funds and keep high taxes.

The Government is closing Ennis General Hospital.

Fortunately for workers, Fianna Fáil has helped negotiate significant tax cuts in the Partnership for Prosperity and Fairness agreement. Labour will not dare touch them.

The previous occasion Fine Gael and Labour had a long stretch in Government was back in the 1980s when they left us with a greater debt per head than Brazil and Portugal. These parties were incompetent in government and, today, are bluster in opposition. Members will recall how one Minister in the rainbow Government said he was dealing with Russian authorities in Dublin Airport on the issue of BSE when he was in a pub in Wexford.

No beef is going to Russia or Egypt today.

Members will recall how another Minister of the same Government doled out jobs in his Department to party hacks through advertisements in the party journal. Another was made apologise in the House for making insulting comments about hepatitis C sufferers. Another touted £100 tickets for a rare opportunity to meet the Minister for Finance. The Opposition should get down off the moral high ground and give the House policies, worthwhile input and dignity.

I hope there will be a united ticket next time.

We have loyalty.

I hope Willie will not do a solo run.

(Interruptions.)

Time is limited. The next speaker should be allowed speak without interruption.

When I heard last Thursday that this motion was being put on the Order Paper calling for the resignation of the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, my first reaction was one of incredulity. I could not believe the Opposition parties had reached the low ebb of having no policy matters to address but were reduced to making this attack on the Minister of State. My worst fears for the motion were confirmed last night and this morning when I heard the tone and content of what was said by speakers. While there were a few exceptions, by and large, the level of hypocrisy was astounding, as the Minister of State said.

It is a major mistake at this stage to try to apply criteria of common sense and logic to establish the motive behind this motion. One must assume it came from the same marketing stable which produced the Celtic snail last week. That surely, among all the debacles in political marketing or marketing of any type, will forever rank in the top three or four. It is extraordinary. I admire the attempts of the Minister of State's colleague to distance himself from it on "Questions and Answers" on Monday night last and postponing an answer to it because, if any element of common sense were applied to marketing an idea or the consideration of a marketing campaign or slogan, it would be difficult to devise one which was more certain to rebound on those who devised it. Therefore, I am forced to dispense with logic in trying to figure out how the element in the motion relating to the Minister of State was included. I would welcome a proper debate on the taxi issue and I will deal with some of the matters relating to that.

The Minister of State is correct in his analysis that his transgression has much more to do with the fact that he manages to consistently head the poll in his constituency and stymie the leadership ambitions of his party colleague—

As if the Deputy does not do so himself.

—with extraordinary help from some of those in Fine Gael who, clearly, are not in contact with the situation. Deputy Carey is entirely wrong to suggest that Fianna Fáil ever had plans to close Ennis General Hospital. The only plans which ever came forward came from a Government of which he was a backbench member and which people such as Deputy Daly and I spent the past ten, 13 or 14 years fighting successfully to ensure it was remedied.

Can Deputy Killeen say it will not close?

I have already said so. Once is enough.

The Deputy did not say so, he only skirted around the question.

I assure Deputy Carey he does not have to be concerned because issues in Clare are being dealt with by Deputy Daly, me and our colleague, the Minister, Deputy de Valera.

I will remind the Deputy of that tomorrow.

There is no danger on that front and any time the Deputy reminds me, it is as much to my advantage as his reminding me that he represents the snail element in the House and in politics. I welcome any intervention of that nature.

The Deputy should tell the crowd in Feakle, Scarriff and Kilkee about the sewerage.

Acting Chairman

I have been lenient with the Deputy.

Leave him at it, Chairman, because there are perfectly good answers to all his remarks.

No snail involved.

I welcome the opportunity to ensure that the House becomes aware that no progress was made during the three years when Deputy Carey was Minister of State, had direct responsibility for a number of issues and was answerable to the people of County Clare. The sewerage schemes did not appear at the planning stage or anything like that. I welcome the opportunity to clarify all these matters.

The deregulation of taxis is a serious issue. I welcome the Government amendment, especially the third part where the House is asked to note the Government's commitment to a process of dialogue with existing licence holders which is under way and which is welcome.

More dialogue.

The House is also asked to note the Government's readiness to provide special tax allowances and an administrative scheme for certain licence fees by way of mitigation for appropriate cases. It is important that that element of the amendment to the motion is properly explored. Some of it can be explored here. Clearly most of it can be explored in direct talks between the Minister of State and the taxi drivers' lobby.

Some people put themselves in considerable debt and some, perhaps foolishly, mortgaged their houses to buy taxi plates. Whatever else they were doing, they were certainly trying to provide themselves with the opportunity to earn a livelihood. I would not be happy if they were penalised for that and I welcome this part of the amendment to the motion in that it will address that.

It is fair to say that there are taxi owners and drivers who have genuine fears for their livelihoods and it is not helpful that that would be debased and laughed at in any sense in this House or elsewhere. I agree with the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, in what he said about some of the people at the meeting last Tuesday week in the hotel in Clare Street who said one thing in the House and the opposite at the meeting. I was present for the entire meeting and know what was said. I did not avail of the opportunity to say anything, foolish or otherwise.

That element of the issue needs to be addressed and there is a need for standards of quality to be imposed. We need a proper taxi service in future. Work is required in that regard and it can be done in co-operation with taxi owners. That will happen. The taxi lobby did not deserve to be treated the way it was in the media. It made mistakes and has done so over three or four years. It refused to address the issues or adopt a policy which would have allowed this matter to be dealt with by negotiation. However, it did not deserve the campaign of vilification waged against it. It was under pressure, its members feared for their livelihoods and it made mistakes, but claims made against it were wildly exaggerated. Any Member, the Minister of State or anyone else, is entitled to express a level of support and sympathy for the taxi drivers' plight.

Acting Chairman

I see that Deputies Currie, Yates and Cosgrave wish to share their time. Is that agreed? Agreed.

I do not like votes of no confidence because they have a tendency to degenerate into personality politics and sometimes worse. I must admit that I had enough of that in the North over a period of 25 years. However, having listened to the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea's, quite vitriolic contribution—

Your colleague's reply was equally vitriolic last night.

—I might be tempted to follow him, but I will resist that temptation. The sort of contribution he made does not do anything for politics. It explains, partially, why politicians and politics have a bad name in this State.

Did the Deputy hear Deputy Owen's contribution last night?

I heard it and I do not agree with the personality aspect of it, but I must say that the Deputy is pretty good at dishing it out. He went over the top in that respect. The very fact that the Minister felt it necessary to make a very adequate apology to the Taoiseach and the Progressive Democrats in itself indicates that he was at fault and deserves the censure of the House. The bluff and bluster that he has indulged in is an attempt to hide the fact that he was at fault, deservedly had to apologise, and deserves the censure of the House in respect of that.

I am not perfect.

None of us is, but when we make a mistake we should admit it and accept the consequences. There are occasions and issues where a vote of no confidence is justified and necessary. One of these issues concerns the long-established principle of collective responsibility in Government. It is one of the central pillars of our democratic system, without which our parliamentary democracy would not work. It is particularly necessary in a coalition Government made up of two or more parties. Parties in such a Government cannot go their separate ways, unless of course on matters of conscience where it has been agreed that collective responsibility will not apply. The same applies to individual Ministers who make up such Governments.

It is a long time since I described a Stormont Minister for Agriculture as having foot and mouth disease, in that every time he opened his mouth he put his foot in it. One may call that personality politics, even vulgar abuse, and I have been guilty of that on occasions in my time. Thankfully, however, foot and mouth disease is not the threat to animals and the agricultural industry that it once was. As we are only too well aware from current developments, it has been succeeded by BSE. Foot and mouth disease appears to be virulent, however, among Ministers of this Government and in recent times among the ranks of Ministers of State in particular. The Minister of State with responsibility for food, Deputy Ned O'Keeffe, spoke and voted on a motion calling for a total ban on the feeding of meat and bonemeal to all animals, without disclosing his own interest in a pig and feed mill. The Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Deputy Ó Cuív called for the activities of the Department of Defence at Baldonnel to be transferred to his constituency in Galway west, a demand contrary to the policy of the Government to which he belongs, without even the knowledge of the Minister for Defence. It was an act of policy-making on the hoof, if I may describe it as such.

As regards the subject of this debate, the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, not only came out against the policy of the Government but also asked his listeners to resist the judgment of the courts. The gentlest criticism I can make of his action is to say that it was opportunistic. In terms of saying something in private he was not prepared to say in public, it was hardly based on sound moral ground.

One is entitled to ask in relation to this virulent outbreak of foot and mouth disease, where is the vet and what is he doing? Surely the Taoiseach has a responsibility to defend what I have described as one of the central tenets of our parliamentary democracy – collective ministerial responsibility. Surely, even in his own interests of maintaining authority and discipline in the Government, particularly when the call of resistance was made against a member of his coalition partners in Government, he should have taken action, but no, the Taoiseach, apparently, is not a man for such decisions, maybe not a man for any decisions. That is not his style or inclination. He prefers to put off until tomorrow decisions which should be taken today. He reminds me of the man jumping from the 34th floor who is overheard shouting, as he passes the 13th floor, "So far, so good". This failure by the Taoiseach to stamp his authority on the Government will inevitably have a sorry end for him.

My first experience of the political relationship between Fianna Fáil and the taxi industry was during my very first election to the Dáil. I was more than a little surprised to find outside certain polling stations in the constituency rows of taxis where the sign on the top was covered by a poster with the name of a certain Fianna Fáil candidate. I was more than a bit surprised also to see the length of those taxi queues and I wondered why they were there. Later in the day when I visited another part of the constituency, I saw similar rows of taxis bearing the name of the other Fianna Fáil candidate. I wondered about that because I come from a place where black taxis operated, particularly in west Belfast, and we knew who controlled them. I wondered, therefore, what the political relationship was between people in the taxi industry and the Fianna Fáil Party. I have come to know much more about that matter as time has progressed. It is perfectly clear from the reaction of some taxi drivers to the prospect of deregulation that they expected a return for such political support. The vehemence of the response by so many taxi drivers underlines their bitter disappointment and feelings of betrayal.

During this crisis for the taxi drivers, some Fianna Fáil backbenchers, as well as Deputy O'Dea, have persisted in leading taxi drivers up the garden path to destruction. How sincere are they? Have they put their seats, or even their party membership in this House, on the line? That would be a test of conviction, of being true friends, but no, they have cynically manipulated taxi drivers, dropped them in it and betrayed them.

There should be deregulation of the taxi business. I have been of the opinion for some time that the taxi men's leaders were leading them into a cul-de-sac, that the failure to make proposals themselves to improve the service was a bad mistake, that public opinion in this city in particular would eventually force something akin to what has now happened, that their public relations effort was atrocious, that their espousal of confrontation was bound to lead to their defeat in any contest for public opinion, and that a row with a PD Minister – grasping at any straw for public rehabilitation – was a recipe for disaster.

The taxi men have been badly advised and badly led, but I object to the way in which they have been vilified in some sections of the media by some commentators. Some taxi men have come across badly and have behaved badly, damaging themselves and their cause in the process. Threats to the media amounted to pure stupidity. Those people who were so loud and confrontational on the streets and who were involved in acts of inexcusable intimidation at Dublin Airport were only a small minority of the taxi drivers involved in the dispute. The great majority are ordinary decent people who are afraid for their future and that of their families, and rightly bitter because of their feelings of betrayal.

There are some who deserve what they have got. I refer to the speculators, those with many plates, some of whom have never driven a taxi in their lives. They have speculated and, like all speculators, they win some and lose some. This time they have lost and I have no sympathy for them. There are others, however, who deserve our sympathy and full compensation for their loss. I refer to the man or woman with his own plate and car doing a day's work and working long hours, ordinary decent hard-working people whose wit and conversational capacity have added much to the reputation of our city and country for conversation. I refer to the cosy, who has been used, abused and exploited by those who sit at home or have other occupations and who use the wealth generated by the sweat of the cosies on foreign holidays or other similar luxuries. I refer to the widow – one is particularly well known to me – who was bequeathed a plate as a form of pension and now, having no other pension, must think in terms of employment to keep body and soul together. Some have had to come out of retirement to take up low paid jobs in order to do so. I refer to others who have been forced to retire because of bad health, for example, and are now at wit's end. All these people deserve our sympathy and, more than that, they require to be fully compensated. I hope to hear this from the mouth of the Minister for Finance later today. They are the people who are suffering and deserve to be fully compensated, not those who have been speculating and led the people mentioned into this dreadful position.

I hope a solution is found before Christmas. We are all aware of the dangers to young people. As the father of young people, I share the fear of parents about their children on the streets of Dublin trying to find their way home. I hate to think of what might happen over Christmas when the lack of taxis will encourage the less responsible to take a chance and have that extra pint or two. Whereas previously they would have called for a taxi, they will now have their cars with them. This is a real danger, if the dispute is allowed to continue over Christmas.

In one respect the Ministers of State, Deputies O'Dea and O'Keeffe, should count their blessings. Those of us who were Ministers or Ministers of State in the Government led by Deputy John Bruton know how long he would have tolerated such activity. He would not have tolerated it for 24 hours. That would have been the maximum. That is only right. The Ministers of State who have been so irresponsible in their breach of ministerial responsibility and the Taoiseach who allowed them to do so have a lesson to learn from the way Deputy Bruton behaved when Taoiseach.

The public did not tolerate it.

That is not true. As opposed to Fianna Fáil whose vote dropped by 5%, we increased our number of seats by nine in the last general election.

The difference is that we are in government.

Fianna Fáil would sell its soul for anything. It speaks out of the two sides of its mouth.

I am disappointed the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, saw fit to leave the House. He could have no more pressing business than his own survival and accountability to the House. He is able to dish it out in terms of his hysterical vitriol this morning, but not able to listen to the points being made. He should reflect on the fact that the cause and source of his difficulties are his own utterances, not the Opposition. It is our job to hold members of the Government to account for Government policy. That is the purpose of the House and the function of the Opposition. We have an adversarial system. The Minister of State has nobody to blame for his difficulties but himself.

It is valid for any member of the Government to hold a view on any issue which deviates from that of the Government. It is not unprecedented in other jurisdictions for politicians to disagree with Government policy, take a stand on principle, resign from office and freely articulate and defend that point of principle from the backbenches, but in this instance we have a Minister of State who is running fast with the hare and even faster with the hounds. He said as late as one hour ago that he still retains the private view that he does not agree with Government policy, but at the same time he is happy to vote for an amendment in support of the Government. I find it intensely difficult to listen, as we did this morning, to lectures on hypocrisy to Deputy Bruton and my party from the Minister of State who still retains such private views while expressing public support for the Government at the same time. Lectures from the Minister of State are impossible to stomach given his stated position.

If the Minister of State really wants to be a rebel and supports the case of taxi drivers who are opposed to deregulation, he should resign on a point of principle and act accordingly. What he is trying to do is have his cake and eat it. He is trying to have it both ways simultaneously whereby he can say out of one side of his mouth, "Keep up the pressure, lads, we are right behind you" and out of the other make a grovelling apology to the Tánaiste, the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, and the Progressive Democrats. It is that type of double speak and double standards which has made politics one of the most disreputable professions in Ireland. It is as blatant as that.

The authority of the Taoiseach has taken hammer blows during the lifetime of this Dáil. He was not prepared to hold former Minister, Ray Burke, to account. Neither was he prepared to hold Deputy Lawlor to account or to deal with the Foley and Ellis affairs. Like Mr. Justice O'Flaherty, he left them twisting in the wind until they had no choice but to resign. That is not good leadership or authority.

If one is looking for an example of the way in which this debate should be dealt with, one need look no further than the comments of the Tánaiste last Thursday. The joint leader of the Government, the deputy Prime Minister and leader of one of the coalition parties has set out her stall, which is very clear. The headlines read, "Willie lashed over two faced taxi speech", "Harney blasts O'Dea for backing ‘the lads' ", and "Harney rounds on O'Dea". She had some good quotes. She said that any member of the Government who advised taxi drivers that there would be a change of policy was being very foolish. She added that it would be unreasonable and unfair for a member of Government to mislead taxi drivers. The Tánaiste has put it up to the Minister of State to stand by his principles or step down.

There is a view that, "Ah sure, it's all right if Minister O'Keeffe does one thing and preaches another" and "Ah sure, it's all right if Minister O'Dea didn't realise he was being recorded". Is it any wonder Fianna Fáil has the unique record in Irish politics that once a party enters a coalition with it, it will not do so at the subsequent general election? The Tánaiste has made it clear that she will not be fighting the next general election on a joint platform with Fianna Fáil. Whatever one may say about it, the three parties in the last rainbow Government fought the subsequent general election together on one single platform.

Look where it ended up.

At a time when he was under enormous pressure from street blockades and a taxi strike and at a time when he was being vilified by the taxi sector, the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, found that he was being accused of being impotent or impertinent by a fellow colleague. If that is the type of support which minority parties in government can expect, one should not be surprised to find there is no queue of small parties lining up to coalesce with Fianna Fáil.

The principle of collective responsibility has been abandoned by the Government in this instance, but we must go deeper. It is not just the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea. The Taoiseach is probably saying the same to his taxi driver friends in Drumcondra, as are Deputy Callely and the Taoiseach's brother, Deputy Noel Ahern. I am sure they are crying salt crocodile tears to the taxi drivers who displayed their logos and electioneering material during the last general election. It reminds me of what happened this time last year. When the heat came on individualisation in the budget, a succession of backbench TDs were sent forward to the plinth.

Nobody sends anybody anywhere.

The Minister of State, Deputy Hanafin, was given a feature role by the Fianna Fáil press office and was encouraged to say that the policy would have to be reconsidered because the needs of women in the home had been disregarded.

People acted on their own initiative.

It was orchestrated double speak and the Minister for Finance was left to hang out to dry. It is a well established tactic by the Fianna Fáil press office that when the heat comes on, the second violin begins playing to ensure an organised campaign is put in place against Government policy.

This comes back to the basic issue in this debate, the Government's credibility. How credible is it for the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, to say he supports the Government and then say he did not know there was a tape recorder at the meeting when he told taxi drivers to keep up the pressure? Even more serious, it was a call to keep up the pressure against the Justice Murphy judgment in the High Court which said the Government had no function in limiting the quantity of taxis to be licensed.

The Government's credibility is in tatters. I am not sure of the exact phrase used by the late Deputy Kemmy but it is apt in this debate. It was to the effect that Deputy O'Dea was a mighty mouse in the constituency and a church mouse in this Chamber. It is the job of my party to expose and embarrass the Government on foot of its hypocrisy, double standards and double speak.

I will now turn to the taxi licence issue. The present impasse is due to Fianna Fáil misleading the taxi industry, at every level, over the past four or five years. It misled the industry about the proposal that was then before the local authorities. The previous Government devolved the issue to local government and there was clear intent on the part of Dublin Corporation to bite the bullet and provide extra taxis. With the change of Government in 1997 a taxi forum was established to put the issue back into a paralysed state of consultation.

This was followed by the decision to allocate 3,100 extra licences on a plate for plate basis. Now, three and a half years later, there is a direct conflict between what is good for the consumer, given the huge queues for taxis, and what is good for the vested interest. Fianna Fáil is trying to support the vested interest. That is the kernel of this issue.

I am deeply unimpressed by the Government's handling of this matter. One thing Fianna Fáil excels at is counting. There are approximately 2,750 taxi operators on strike at present but there are 5,500 hackneys in this country trying to ply their trade. I am most concerned about the intimidation leveled at the hackney industry. That has been swept under the carpet by the Government. It is unacceptable for any group to blockade Kildare Street and access to the national airport and for the Garda authorities to claim they can do nothing about it. That is a further sign of a lack of good authority on the part of the Government.

The Government is in disarray. This is the first time I have attended a Private Members' debate on a specific issue at which the Minister with responsibility has not contributed. The Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, has not set foot in the House and he is responsible, when he is not in Mexico, for this issue.

The motion is about the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea.

No, the amendment tabled by the Government is in relation to taxi policy. The motion deals with the hypocrisy of the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, and his untenable position as a member of the Government, but the Government's response is on taxi policy.

The Chief Whip, Deputy Séamus Brennan, was sent to tick off the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea. This demonstrates an abandonment of leadership by the Taoiseach. If there is a problem with an office holder, he simply does not want to know about it. The chickens will come home to roost because this is but the latest example of his leadership. I believe a great deal more in relation to the Minister of State, Deputy O'Keeffe, has still to emerge. The Taoiseach, however, wants to hear no evil and speak no evil. Ultimately, the credibility and authority of the Government, with the undermining of the junior partner in Government, will become unacceptable. The Government is supporting a vested interest against the public interest in the taxi issue.

That a Minister of State should act against the interests of a fellow Minister of State shows the failure of the Government to govern the State. It is unacceptable that a Minister of State should see fit to ambush a colleague, a fellow player in the Administration.

If such a fundamental disagreement exists, the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science should do the decent thing and resign his post so he can pursue his objection to Government policy from the security of the backbenches or, perhaps, from the back seat of a taxi. The behaviour of the Minister in his Limerick constituency, where he is reported to have encouraged his taxi owning voters to continue to obstruct the deregulation of the taxi trade, must force the Taoiseach to remove Deputy O'Dea from office.

Every Deputy is aware of public anger at the operation of the taxi trade, particularly as it functions in the Dublin area. There is a lack of taxis on the street when they are required, continuous complaints that taxi drivers want to cherry-pick their journeys and many cars in service are old and unsuitable for the task. Often customers complain that they are subjected to ongoing whinging by the drivers on just about every topic. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, ought to be aware that if taxi drivers were operating today it is likely that he would be the subject of their whines.

The need for the taxi market to be opened up has been obvious to everybody for many years. Of course, the Minister of State could be forgiven for being confused. When the joint Dublin local authority committee dealing with the issue of increasing the number of taxi licences was making progress towards putting more taxis on the streets, the Taoiseach caved in to the demonstrations of taxi drivers and set up a taxi forum. It acted to undermine the progress and functions of the Dublin authorities.

As a member of Fingal County Council, I took part in many debates in which councillors worked hard, in co-operation with the taxi plate owners, to ensure a taxi service would be made available. The committee was making progress with Dublin Corporation whose members also worked hard on this issue. However, the Taoiseach proceeded to set up the forum to put the issue on the back-boiler. If that had not occurred, there would be an extra 2,500 taxis in Dublin.

The Government must accept much responsibility for what has developed. The taxi operators are convinced that their Bertie will scupper deregulation and they are encouraged in this view by Deputy O'Dea and other Members of the House. Like Deputy Currie, I remember the last general election and the taxis scurrying around Dublin supporting Fianna Fáil Party candidates and encouraging customers to vote for those candidates. I am sorry that happened. It was a big mistake and another element of the party's poor PR. Deputies on this side of the House well remember that element of the campaign. The Taoiseach needs to support and protect the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, and the Government and, working together, they must find ways to improve the number and standard of cabs on the streets while helping to address any issue of hardship resulting from deregulation.

I pay tribute to cosies who work for taxi plate owners. They work very hard and should be considered in any new issue of taxi licences.

I am pleased to contribute to this debate and to record my confidence in my colleague the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea. We heard the Opposition criticise the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, for his statements on the Government decision to deregulate the taxi business. We heard the Minister of State apologise to his Government, to his Government partners and particularly to Deputy Molloy, Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government. Fine Gael, in its Private Members' motion, is extreme in its criticism of the Minister of State and its calls for the Taoiseach to remove him from office are emotive and lack careful consideration.

When a Minister has made an error of judgment, a good and effective Government will carefully balance the error and contrast it with the positive contribution the Minister has made in his or her duties over many years.

Pontius Pilate.

Last night, we heard the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Woods, outline the many achievements of the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, since he was appointed to office in 1997. In a matter of weeks after his appointment, he realised how inadequately our adult literacy service was funded under the past Government and almost immediately he argued successfully for additional funding to remedy this. This was followed by a provision of £73.4 million over the term of the national development plan. We also heard the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Woods, outline how the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, raised the profile of adult education and in a matter of less than three years produced a Green Paper, followed by a White Paper entitled Learning for Life. This has been instrumental in bringing adult education to the forefront of the education system and making people aware of the importance of creating a lifelong learning culture.

In youth affairs, the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, has secured a substantial increase in funding from £13.345 million in 1997 to £18.872 million for the year ahead. He has requested the National Youth Advisory Committee to prepare a national development plan to map out the way forward for youth work over the next five years.

On the school transport front, the Minister of State was instrumental in securing funding to enable every special school to have escorts on their school bus services for those children who need them.

The Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, is a talented parliamentarian. He has displayed a depth of ability in bringing complex legislation to the Dáil and Seanad for other Departments often at short notice. He was clearly wrong in his address to taximen recently and he has fully admitted this and has apologised for it. I hope all sides of the House will see that the achievements the Deputy has made in his position as Minister of State far outweigh his recent error of judgment. He clearly stated that he will comply with the Government's decision on deregulation. He has apologised to the Taoiseach and to our partners in Government. This matter has been extensively debated in this House and in the media. It is time to put it to rest and allow the Government to move forward and to continue in our delivery of effective Government. Political life is a complicated one and I am sure there are very few Members of the House who can reflect on their political careers and not recall a moment when they were spontaneous and said something which they later regretted. I listened to the contribution earlier today of my former college colleague, Deputy Gilmore, who admitted the matter of double speak. If ever we heard double speak, it is surely in this motion. The Opposition put down this motion to try to deflect from the qualities of the Minister of State as an individual of great intellectual capacity, as a professional of outstanding record—

Person of the year.

—in the different professions in which he worked and as a Dáil Deputy for Limerick East and for the city and country areas of Limerick county, in which he has displayed outstanding ability. He has been vindicated time after time in his decisions and returned to office with an enhanced, increased vote on every occasion. What more can one say? I listened with great interest to his contribution in the House this morning. It was a devastating, outstanding contribution—

Hysterical.

—from a man who just destroyed the members of the Opposition and showed them up for what they are—

The next leader of Fianna Fáil.

—ineffective rudderless, leaderless, without focus and not knowing were they are going. The big question is, quo vadis? I wonder where Deputy Yates and his colleagues, who aspire to greater office, are going now.

I have every confidence in the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, and I look forward to working with him up to the next general election and thereafter. I am sure when political commentators reflect on his term of office, this issue will be very much in the shadow of his positive achievements. Let us all accept the humanity and commitment of this highly articulate, intelligent and effective parliamentary colleague. Let us all wish him well in his commitment to continue his distinguished public service to the people of Limerick and Ireland.

He made only a little mistake.

Have him in the Cabinet.

Let us quit the messing and get on with the business. Let us have a good budget and ensure the people will endorse this Government back to office as quickly as possible.

The Minister is a true inspiration.

I wish to share my time with Deputy Olivia Mitchell.

Acting Chairman

Is that agreed. Agreed.

The vitriolic contribution of the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, this morning is a little hypocritical because the expert on the Celtic snail must be the Minister of State himself. He should look in the mirror because when the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Woods, came in here last night and was told to speak for 30 minutes on the actions the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, has taken in the Department for the past three and a half years, he found it very difficult to come up with a script. The Minister of State has typified the inaction of this Government over the past three and a half years he has been Minister of State. He is the Minister of State with responsibility for school transport, so important to him that a page and a half of the script of the Minister, Deputy Woods, referred to school transport. That shows what he thinks of the 160,000 school children who are brought to school every day on unsafe, dilapidated and overcrowded buses. Children sit on wet seats because the rain comes through the roofs of the buses. A serious accident is waiting to happen on our school transport fleet and the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, has ignored this issue. He has had a report before him for the past 12 months which has been gathering dust and on which he is not prepared to take action.

The Minister, Deputy Woods, and Minister of State, Deputy Treacy, spoke about escorts on school buses. Yes, the Minister of State provided the funding for escorts but he did not provide a structure to distribute the funding. He did not provide the insurance or the regulations and he showed absolutely no interest in children with a disability on school transport because he threw in money without putting the structures in place. If a school bus breaks down, where are the mobile phones that were supposed to be installed on these buses? They have not been provided. If a bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere, the bus driver is stranded with a busload of children and it makes no difference to the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea. What about the appeals system that was supposed to be put in place for school transport, the system which the Comptroller and Auditor General criticised the Department for not putting in place? The Minister of State has not introduced that. If one wants to know the record of this Minister of State one has only to ask the parents of pupils, the 160,000 who travel on school transport or the bus drivers who are threatening industrial action. We should ask them what the Minister of State has done in regard to school transport. He has done nothing. He has ignored the issue and is continuing to ignore it.

The Minister, Deputy Woods, decided to allocate six pages of his speech to youth affairs, the other responsibility of the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, who is the scarlet pimpernel of the youth affairs brief. Youth organisations seeking a meeting with the Minister of State asks a member of the Opposition to put down a parliamentary question to get a meeting with him. That is the only way they have got a meeting to date with the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea. It has taken him three and a half years to publish the Youth Work Bill. Initially, he said it would be published prior to Christmas 1997, then it was Easter 1998, summer 1998, Christmas 1998, summer 1999, then Christmas 1999 and eventually it was published in April of this year. It took another six months for it to come into the House and it is still on Second Stage after three and a half years. Yet the previous Minister of State, Deputy Allen, in two and a half years, brought similar legislation before the House, had the consultations and delivered on it. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, does not make this a priority. I am pleased that at long last the Minister of State has recognised the existence of the Youth Work Advisory Committee. He did not allow a meeting of this committee to take place for up to 12 months after he had taken over the brief. That was his priority on the matter.

The Taoiseach has received critical correspondence on numerous occasions, and from many youth organisations, on the actions or lack of actions by this Minister of State on the youth affairs brief. Last night, the Minister spoke about the local youth clubs grants scheme, the funding for which was increased from £365,000 to £1 million in 2000, and clapped the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, on the back for his action. He did not say that the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation who is responsible for the budget in this area has denied youth organisations that funding. No additional funding is being provided.

The Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, was praised for his action in regard to adult education. The Minister's comments ran to 15 pages; it must have been very difficult to come up with a script. If the programme of adult education had not been outlined in the programme for Government, no action would have been taken in this area either. We have heard endless discussions on the matter but no action has been taken. Three and a half years on, some 500,000 people still have poor literacy skills and one in eight children leaves school with poor literacy skills. The Minister has singularly dragged his heels on this issue since he took office. He has been big on sound-bites but very poor on action.

I welcomed Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea's presence in the House this morning as he entertained us highly. Like Deputy Currie, I do not like no confidence motions because they, inevitably, become too personal. However, having witnessed the Minister of State's hypocritical and vitriolic performance, I was reminded why it is sometimes necessary to table such a motion. His contribution reinforced my view that he is not fit to be a Minister. His presence in the House this morning marked a departure from the opening of the debate when nobody from the entire Fianna Fáil benches was in the House, with the exception of the Minister for Education and Science. The Taoiseach did not come into the House to defend his Ministers.

It is well known that the Taoiseach was away yesterday.

The Taoiseach is always away when there is a difficult decision to be made.

He is a great man to go missing.

If I were the Tánaiste, I would begin to feel that this Taoiseach is not 100% behind her party's Minister and the proposal to liberalise the taxi market. Perhaps those seeds of doubt have already taken firm root and are threatening to break the very fragile threads which hold the Government together.

One would have expected that some Deputies from the ranks of the great Fianna Fáil Party and the dwindling Progressive Democrats would have felt obliged to subscribe to the notion of collective responsibility and come into the House to restate the Government's position which the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, assured us had the backing of the Cabinet. Yet, nobody turned up.

The fact that nobody came into the House to support the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, was not surprising. Indeed, I found it encouraging as it offered the possibility that people had perhaps recognised that he did not do the Government any service. His behaviour in trying to have it both ways did a disservice to good politicians from all parties who regularly put their heads on the electoral block at local and national level and stand up for their beliefs rather than pander to vested interests for the purposes of some short-term political gain.

Nobody, with the exception of Braveheart himself, the Minister for Education and Science, came into the House to support the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea. The senior Minister was ordered out of the trenches to come into the House all on his own to defend his junior Minister. In fairness to the Minister, he did his best. We were treated to a 30 minute contribution in which the Minister catalogued Deputy O'Dea's virtues and achievements, although I suspect it was delivered without any great enthusiasm. It certainly did not receive thunderous applause from the back benches. The empty back benches were a silent affirmation of Fianna Fáil Members' opinions of the Minister of State's virtues.

Just when we were all about to nod off, the Minister surprised us by asking the House to support the Government's initiative on taxis. We would love to do that but simply do not know which part of the Government we are being asked to support or which particular initiative we are being asked to support. Are we being asked to support the collective responsibility of Government of which we see so little these days? Are we being asked to support the Progressive Democrat's arm of the Government, as represented by the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, or the Fianna Fáil wing, as represented by the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea? Then there is the conundrum of where the Taoiseach fits in; which wing does he lead?

What initiative are we being asked to support? Is it the delaying tactic embodied by the Taoiseach's forum initiative which was established exclusively to establish what taxi drivers wanted without a thought for the needs of the public? Is it Minister of State, Deputy Molloy's quick fix gimmick of giving an additional plate to all members of the cartel, the solution which the Minister of State persists in calling his radical solution? In the end, it turned out to be both radical and redundant. It is amazing that the resident expert in the House on these matters could not have offered the Minister of State some legal advice before he came out with that idea. Even the dogs on the street knew that could not survive a court challenge.

We then come to the deregulation initiative. Leaving aside the puzzle of how the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, can claim a lost court case as his initiative, I cannot understand how the Minister for Education and Science had the audacity to seek the House's support for an initiative which his own junior Minister would not support. Where will the Government go from here? When will it start governing? When will we see taxis back on the streets? Will the gardaí protect the new licence holders at the end of the week? Will businesses continue to lose customers and lay off staff and will the public continue to be subjected to untold disruption and danger? Does anybody in the Government have any idea what the next step is? If they do, will they please share the information with the rest of us?

I have my own suspicions that the next step will be a step backwards into a committee, a Taoiseach's forum mark II in which members of the taxi industry will have their ruffled feathers smoothed and their fears allayed. The public interest will be way down the agenda and we will be informed that deregulation will happen but not just yet. It will happen when the lads are happy with it.

The Government has covered itself with shame on this issue. For years, Fianna Fáil has supported, protected and sustained the taxi cartel but now it finds it has turned into a monster over which it does not have any control.The Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea's despicable display of manipulation and deception personifies the ambivalence towards this issue displayed by many members of his party, in spite of the public's anger and the frightening admission by the gardaí that even they cannot control the taxi drivers.

The Taoiseach has stood by, apparently completely unperturbed by this behaviour. He appears to find it quite acceptable that a Minister of State should openly undermine a Government decision and actively incite opposition and anarchy in a group of people whose members were already out on the streets behaving in a totally intimidating fashion.

We are faced with mayhem on our streets, loss of business etc. and it is up to the Taoiseach to state that the taxi drivers' behaviour is intolerable. He should make it clear to the public that it is the Government, not vested interests, which is running the country. The Taoiseach was elected to lead the Government and make decisions. He is supposed to be the person to whom we can all turn in times of crisis to provide leadership. If he is to retain any credibility, the Minister should start providing that leadership soon.

The Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, came into the House today to offer his apology. He obviously apologised to the Taoiseach and the Progressive Democrats; indeed, he was probably told to do so. He devoted the remainder of his contribution to attacking everybody else but himself. Members of the Fine Gael and Labour Parties were not spared. Everybody was wrong except him. He did not even spare the dead in trying to deflect the blame from where it should clearly lie – firmly at his feet. The Minister of State spoke out of both sides of his mouth at once, sat on the fence and did what Fianna Fáil has always done. He showed very clearly, lest there was any doubt about it, just how fundamentally he has failed to grasp what he did wrong or the nature of his sin. He has let down all politicians by his two-faced performance. He has deceived his constituents. He has disgraced his Government. He has let down his Cabinet colleagues and he has not looked after the interests of Limerick taxi drivers. As I said last night, if he really supported them and cared about the issue, if he believed the Government was wrong, he would have resigned in protest.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

No principle.

He did not do that and he should step down now.

Amendment put.

Ahern, Bertie.Ahern, Dermot.Ahern, Michael.Ahern, Noel.Ardagh, Seán.Aylward, Liam.Blaney, Harry.Brady, Johnny.Brady, Martin.Brennan, Matt.Brennan, Séamus.Briscoe, Ben.Browne, John (Wexford).Byrne, Hugh.Callely, Ivor.Carey, Pat.Collins, Michael.Cooper-Flynn, Beverley.Coughlan, Mary.Cowen, Brian.Cullen, Martin.Daly, Brendan.Davern, Noel.de Valera, Síle.Dempsey, Noel.

Dennehy, John.Doherty, Seán.Ellis, John.Fahey, Frank.Fleming, Seán.Flood, Chris.Foley, Denis.Fox, Mildred.Gildea, Thomas.Hanafin, Mary.Harney, Mary.Haughey, Seán.Healy-Rae, Jackie.Jacob, Joe.Keaveney, Cecilia.Kelleher, Billy.Kenneally, Brendan.Killeen, Tony.Kirk, Séamus.Kitt, Michael P.Kitt, Tom.Lawlor, Liam.Lenihan, Brian.Lenihan, Conor. McDaid, James.

Tá–continued

McGennis, Marian.McGuinness, John J.Martin, Micheál.Moffatt, Thomas.Molloy, Robert.Moloney, John.Moynihan, Donal.Moynihan, Michael.Ó Cuív, Éamon.O'Dea, Willie.O'Donnell, Liz.O'Donoghue, John.O'Flynn, Noel.O'Hanlon, Rory.O'Keeffe, Batt.

O'Keeffe, Ned.O'Kennedy, Michael.O'Rourke, Mary.Power, Seán.Reynolds, Albert.Roche, Dick.Ryan, Eoin.Smith, Brendan.Smith, Michael.Treacy, Noel.Wade, Eddie.Wallace, Dan.Wallace, Mary.Woods, Michael.Wright, G. V.

Níl

Allen, Bernard.Barnes, Monica.Barrett, Seán.Bell, Michael.Belton, Louis J.Boylan, Andrew.Bradford, Paul.Browne, John (Carlow-Kilkenny).Bruton, John.Bruton, Richard.Burke, Liam.Burke, Ulick.Carey, Donal.Clune, Deirdre.Connaughton, Paul.Cosgrave, Michael.Coveney, Simon.Crawford, Seymour.Creed, Michael.Currie, Austin.D'Arcy, Michael.Deasy, Austin.Deenihan, Jimmy.Dukes, Alan.Durkan, Bernard.Enright, Thomas.Farrelly, John.Finucane, Michael.Fitzgerald, Frances.Flanagan, Charles.Gilmore, Éamon.Gormley, John.Gregory, Tony.

Hayes, Brian.Higgins, Joe.Hogan, Philip.Howlin, Brendan.Kenny, Enda.McCormack, Pádraic.McGinley, Dinny.McGrath, Paul.McManus, Liz.Mitchell, Gay.Mitchell, Olivia.Moynihan-Cronin, Breeda.Naughten, Denis.Neville, Dan.O'Keeffe, Jim.O'Shea, Brian.O'Sullivan, Jan.Owen, Nora.Penrose, William.Perry, John.Rabbitte, Pat.Reynolds, Gerard.Ring, Michael.Ryan, Seán.Sargent, Trevor.Shatter, Alan.Sheehan, Patrick.Spring, Dick.Stanton, David.Timmins, Billy.Upton, Mary.Wall, Jack.Yates, Ivan.

Tellers: Tá, Deputies S. Brennan and Power; Níl, Deputies Flanagan and Rabbitte.
Amendment declared carried.
Question, "That the motion, as amended, be agreed to", put and declared carried.
Barr
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