The Order of Business today shall be as follows: No. 27a, Courts and Court Officers Bill, 2001, allocation of time motion for select committee; No. 63, Gas (Interim) (Regulation) Bill, 2001 [Seanad] – Order for Report and Report and Final Stages; No. 6, Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 2002 – Order for Second and Second and Remaining Stages. It is proposed, notwithstanding anything in Standing Orders, that the Dáil shall sit later than 8.30 p.m. and business shall be interrupted not later than 11 p.m., and the sitting shall be suspended between 1.30 p.m. and 2.30 p.m.; No. 27a shall be decided without debate; Report and Final Stages of No. 63 shall be taken today and the proceedings thereon shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion at 6 p.m. by one question which shall be put from the Chair and which shall, in relation to amendments, include only those set down or accepted by the Minister for Public Enterprise; Second Stage of No. 6 shall be taken today and the following arrangements shall apply, Second Stage to con clude within three hours and 30 minutes if not previously concluded, Committee Stage to conclude within one hour if not previously concluded, Report and Final Stages to conclude at 11 p.m. if not previously concluded and the proceedings thereon shall be brought to a conclusion by one question in each case which shall be put from the Chair and which shall, in relation to amendments, include only those set down or accepted by the Minister for the Environment and Local Government; the Dáil shall sit tomorrow at 10.30 a.m. and shall adjourn not later than 6 p.m., there shall be no Order of Business, that is, within the meaning of Standing Order 26(2) and (3), and, accordingly, the following business shall be transacted in the following order: Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) (Amendment) Bill, 2002 – Order for Second and Second and Subsequent Stages, and the following arrangements shall apply, Second Stage to conclude within two hours, Committee Stage to conclude within one hour, Report and Final Stages to conclude at 2 p.m. and the proceedings thereon shall be brought to a conclusion by one question in each case which shall be put from the Chair and which shall, in relation to amendments, include only those set down or accepted by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform; Road Traffic Bill, 2001 – Order for Report and Report and Final Stages, which shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion at 4 p.m. by one question which shall be put from the Chair and which shall, in relation to amendments, include only those set down or accepted by the Minister for the Environment and Local Government; Arramara Teoranta (Acquisition of Shares) Bill, 2001 – Order for Second and Second and Subsequent Stages, and the following arrangements shall apply, Second Stage to conclude within 90 minutes, Remaining Stages to conclude at 6 p.m. and the proceedings thereon shall be brought to a conclusion by one question in each case which shall be put from the Chair and which shall, in relation to amendments, include only those set down or accepted by the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources. Private Members' Business shall be No. 134, motion re economic policies, resumed, to be taken immediately after the Order of Business and to conclude after 90 minutes.
Order of Business.
There are five proposals to be put to the House. Is the proposal in relation to the late sitting agreed? Agreed. Is the proposal for dealing with No. 27a agreed?
I am concerned that the House is being asked, in effect, to guillotine this Bill in the select committee. Will the Tánaiste remove the time motion and allow the committee to make its own arrangements, on the understanding that it will complete its business in time to bring the Bill to the House next week for Report and Final Stages?
I understand from the Chief Whip that it is not possible to leave it to the discretion of the committee. The motion must be passed if the Bill is to be brought to the House next week.
I thought the committees had autonomy.
Is the proposal for dealing with No. 63 agreed? Agreed. Is the proposal for dealing with No. 6 agreed? Agreed. Is the proposal regarding the sitting and business of the Dáil tomorrow agreed?
My party is very unhappy at the way in which we are rushing through business at the end of this Dáil. I recognise the Government has a majority in the House and can ramrod this particular set of legislation through tomorrow, but this or a future House will have to come back and undo the damage of hastily enacted legislation to be processed tomorrow.
Is the proposal for the sitting and business of the Dáil tomorrow agreed?
Not only have they the guillotine but they have Pierpoint as well.
I will now take leaders' questions.
I want to raise again this morning the Taoiseach's pet project, Campus and Stadium Ireland, and in particular the aquacentre. Will the Tánaiste inform the House as to what precisely are her concerns about the Attorney General's report? She expressed concerns last night and she should inform the House now as to what those concerns are. Will she give a guarantee that the Attorney General's report will be provided to the Committee of Public Accounts so it is fully informed as it examines this particular project this morning and, in particular, the allocation of the management contract at an overall benefit of almost €170 million to a dormant shelf company, which was instituted with a neat euro resource underpinning it?
Is the Tánaiste aware of claims made by unsuccessful tenderers for the project, and in particular one made on radio this morning, that boxes of supporting documentation were provided by the tenderers, that the closing date was a Friday and the successful tender was awarded on the following Monday, and that it was impossible on any practical evaluation of this for those assessing the project to have adequately assessed the competing bids with the boxes of supporting docu mentation over a weekend when effectively the people involved were not working?
This is beginning to look like a scandal. It is beginning to smell like a scandal. The longer the Taoiseach tries to keep the lid on it and to maintain a situation where the House is not fully informed, the more the public will worry. The Tánaiste has expressed concerns. She is in full possession of the facts. The Attorney General is president of her party. I am sure she has his ear and his advice. Could the rest of us hear what the concerns are? Will she at least take on responsibility and act in the role to which she committed herself five years ago as the conscience of the Government and the monitor of good standards and ethical behaviour in Government? Will she recommit herself to transparency and accountability, of which she spoke five years ago? Let us have it out now here in the House. What is going on with this fiasco which is organised by the Taoiseach and which is becoming a source of scandal in terms of public sector tendering and the allocation of public moneys?
In support of the series of questions which Deputy Noonan has rightly put to the Tánaiste, could I add a supplementary question? When will the game of political pass the parcel end and is the Tánaiste's concern at this stage simply to ensure that there will be no Progressive Democrats' hands near the parcel when it explodes?
My concerns relate to the fact that appropriate processes and procedures were not in place for the expenditure of huge sums of public money. This was a 30 year contract awarded to a company which had no trading record, which was a requirement. When the Government made decisions in this matter it did not have the fullest information and the Government was entitled to—
Why not?
Order.
The Government is entitled to the fullest information and we did not have that. They are my concerns.
Why did she not—
The Deputy either wants to hear what I have to say or he does not.
Please allow the Tánaiste to reply.
What about the people?
The Government responded to a request for a copy of that report from parties mentioned in the Attorney General's report. They have been given until tomorrow to respond. Following their response the report will be pub lished minus the legal advice from the Attorney General.
Are the Ministers asleep in their jobs?
Obviously they are still supporting the Taoiseach.
The Taoiseach's reply puts the Government in the position of the downtown office of Campus and Stadium Ireland. It is a disgrace that the Government would make decisions without having full information. Government is about making decisions on the basis of full information. The memorandum to Government went from the Taoiseach's office. In the normal way, it passed through the Attorney General's office, who signed it off. Full information should be provided to Government in all circumstances.
Why did the Taoiseach not do it?
Are the Tánaiste's concerns, as expressed last night, that something improper has occurred? If she is suspicious that something improper has occurred, will she level with this House in its dying days and tell us the full facts which she has in her possession? Will she stop passing this back to the point when the Dáil goes into recess? Will she tell us what is going on and make a commitment that the Committee of Public Accounts, which under law is mandated to ensure public money is spent properly, will get the Attorney General's report? It should have the Attorney General's report this morning and I want the Tánaiste to give a commitment it will get it.
Has he ever heard of natural justice?
The Minister never heard of it.
A Deputy:
Did the teachers get justice?
Order please.
When the Government made a decision in this matter on 19 December 2001, we were informed that this was the best bid and that on all criteria it had won out. It was on that basis that the Government made the decision.
Did she ask any questions on that day?
We now know that on four different occasions the Government was not given the information at the time it requested appropriate information, and that is my concern. I cannot give an undertaking that the report will go to the committee today because the individ uals involved have been given until tomorrow to respond.
It is a cover-up.
The Progressive Democrats are covering up for Fianna Fáil yet again.
As the Tánaiste, along with the remnants of her party, has been reported on numerous occasions as having been upset, concerned or unhappy with the very structure of Campus and Stadium Ireland, will she confirm the following regarding the position at the very beginning of this project? Will she confirm, first, that the proposal for the Abbotstown project, of which the aquatic centre is a sub-part, was one which did not come to Government in the normal way, in other words, that a memorandum from the Taoiseach, who is responsible for the Department, was not circulated to other Departments for observations and comment and that the memorandum was not put through the Department of Finance for scrutiny and evaluation?
Second, did she or the Attorney General, who at the time was not re-integrated into the Progressive Democrats, raise the question as to the appropriate management structure of Campus and Stadium Ireland, where the chief executive and chairman was the same person, in contradiction of the Cadbury committee's recommendations on corporate governance? Third, did she, the Attorney General or anybody in the serried ranks of the Progressive Democrats raise the question of whether there should be a separate finance director? If they did not raise those questions at that point, why are these concerns being expressed now?
Given the Tánaiste's experience of Cabinet over the past five years and given that she had not been given the full facts by the Taoiseach on a previous set of occasions, did alarm bells not ring in the watchdog compartment of the Tánaiste's office to the effect that incomplete information was being put to her on 19 December, just six days before Christmas? Did she not have some concerns about a project to sign off what, I understand, is a management contract for 30 years? This is without precedent in normal commercial practice. There might perhaps be a lease for 35 years, but a management contract for 30 years is quiet extraordinary. Did any of these concerns manifest themselves to the Tánaiste? Was she made aware of them or did she raise them, or was everybody in such a rush to get to the Christmas break that this thing slipped through, as it seems to have done?
A Deputy:
The watchdog is out for a walk.
A supplementary question, Deputy Noonan.
The Tánaiste said her primary concern was that the Government did not have full information when it made the original decision. Is she suggesting the Taoiseach withheld information from Government when he presented the memorandum?
Secondly, has she inquired how those who evaluated the competing tenders could have come to a decision over a working weekend between Friday and Monday given that supporting documentation, according to one tenderer, involved boxes of information and supporting documentation put together by way of extensive travel abroad while examining the management of projects abroad? How could this possibly be evaluated on the Saturday and Sunday allowing this shelf company to be awarded the contract on Monday? Does the Attorney General's report deal with this? Could we be given his observations on it?
It seems the decision was already made.
The Tánaiste, without interruption.
When the draft legislation was circulated last summer I was anxious, in terms of the observations that I would have made in my capacity as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, that the roles of chairman and chief executive would be separate. That was agreed by the Government last summer. The Government agreed last summer to separate the roles—
It ignored the Minister.
—in accordance with good governance.
The Tánaiste, without interruption.
This body has not been set up on a legislative basis, as one knows.
The Government ignored the Minister.
In respect of the fullest information, when the Government made a decision on this matter first on 19 December 2000, we were told that the assessment panel had chosen this particular bid because, on all counts, it came out highest.
Who told the Minister?
The memorandum from Government informed us that this was the conclusion the assessment panel had come to. I do not think anything has been said to contradict that. I only became aware, as I believe other members of the Government did, when I read in The Irish Times that on 18 December, the day before we made a decision, PricewaterhouseCoopers had alerted the chairman of CSID and others to the problems in respect of this dormant company. We were never informed of that, either in December 2000 or in December 2001, nor were we told about it when the Minister wrote to the chairman.
Did the Taoiseach withhold the information?
Order please, we cannot have further questions. Deputy Noonan is out of order.
Did the Taoiseach withhold the information?
The Taoiseach withheld the information.
The Taoiseach was—
The Tánaiste, without interruption.
The chairman of CSID—
The Tánaiste, without interruption.
The chairman of CSID has already said that he did not inform his board nor did he inform anybody else.
A final question from Deputy Quinn.
The Deputies are out of order. This is leaders' questions.
Did the Tánaiste ask the Taoiseach?
Deputy Jim Mitchell is clearly out of order. I ask the Deputy to remain silent. He is not the leader.
Did the Attorney General interview the Taoiseach?
Deputy Flanagan is out of order. Deputy Quinn, without interruption.
I am probably right in thinking the Tánaiste is the longest serving Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment or, to use the ministry's previous title, Minister for Industry and Commerce. I presume it is reasonable to make the observation that, given her experience plus the business background of the Progressive Democrats, the recommendations of the Cadbury committee on corporate governance would have been known to her prior to the circulation of the legislation to give effect to a decision that had already been made, which was to establish Campus Stadium Ireland. Can the Tánaiste say that this project – we know she was not happy about it from the very beginning – was agreed in principle in advance of the statutory legislation, a project which at that time had in its structure the fusion of both chairperson and chief executive into the one personage? Did she raise any objections at that stage? If not, why not?
The parties concerned have been asked to give their observations on the contents of the report and that will not be completed until tomorrow. In view of the fact that the Committee of Public Accounts is meeting this afternoon, can the Tánaiste not make the draft report available to the members of the committee on a confidential basis so it can be used in the context of having a meaningful discussion with Mr. Teahon and others this afternoon? Otherwise, had she been in my position on this bench and I in her position, does she agree she would have accused me with all the elegance she can command of riding roughshod over the accountability procedures of this House and treating with contempt its Members and the taxpayers who are being asked to underwrite a 30 year contract for the sum of approximately €70 million?
Does the Tánaiste agree that she should have used her expertise and her position as Minister with responsibility for company law to veto or demand the separation so we would not have had the problem and the difficulty in which Mr. Teahon now finds himself – the political scapegoat for the political incompetence of Ministers? Will the Tánaiste assure the House that she will make the report available to members of the Committee of Public Accounts on a confidential basis? They have proven their trustworthiness in the past in such matters. In support of what Deputy Noonan has said, irrespective of what the Tánaiste decides in regard to that issue, will she ensure that the report is published over the weekend so she, the Taoiseach and the remaining members of the Government can be held to account in the last week of this Dáil?
It is no secret that I have had concerns about this matter for quite some time. That is why we had the HPR evaluation of this project. The HPR report reached some serious conclusions, which we should all take on board.
It was ignored.
I do not believe it is unreasonable to give the individuals involved two days to respond. That was the decision made and it will be honoured. After they respond tomorrow, the report will then be published.
What about the other questions?
We will take questions on the Order of Business. We cannot have further questions. The matter is before the committee in any event.
Will it be published over the weekend?
Yes, it will be published tomorrow.
Has the Taoiseach been asked for a statement?
The Tánaiste should reconsider her answer to Deputy Quinn on the matter of the report being made available on a confidential basis before the Committee of Public Accounts meets at 4 p.m. It makes it very difficult—
That is out of order. We are dealing with leaders' questions and the matter is before the Committee of Public Accounts. The committee itself, of which the Deputy is a member, specifically requested that matters before the committee should not be pre-empted in the House. I ask the Deputy to—
On a matter of legislation, one of the recommendations of the DIRT report was that an Oireachtas commission would be established. Will the Bill to give expression to the establishment of an Oireachtas commission be published in this term?
I am informed by the Chief Whip that it will be published, but it will obviously not be enacted in this term.
The Minister for Education and Science has been embroiled in numerous expensive legal battles in terms of parents trying to access educational facilities for children with disabilities. This week, he is paying out over €600,000 in respect of the most recent high-profile case in Galway. When will the Government honour the commitment given in the wake of the Sinnott judgment to bring forward legislation, namely an education (disabilities) Bill? It has been promised since last summer. Will it be published before Easter and will it be enacted before the recess?
I understand the Bill is with the Bills office and will be published shortly.
Will it be enacted before the Dáil—
If we have the Opposition's co-operation.
That is a facetious comment. We have been waiting 12 months.
It depends on when the election is held.
Will the Tánaiste have a word with the Minister for Education and Science, who is sitting beside her, regarding the Stalinist blackout he has imposed on civil servants in his Department's building and planning unit? The officials have instructions from the Minister not to speak to Deputies.
That is not a matter for the Order of Business.
Yes, it is. It is an important matter.
The files are in the boot of the Minister's car.
Given that the average pension for a CIE worker after 40 years is €50 per week, will the Transport (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, which deals with increased borrowing for CIE and other matters, be brought forward and will it deal with the introduction of a proper pension scheme for CIE workers?
I understand the heads of that Bill will be cleared by the Government shortly.
We have waited two years for the list of events provided for in the Broadcasting (Major Events Television Coverage) Act. Will this list be provided by the Minister before the Dáil ends or am I going to have to do it myself?
As leader or not?
I am not sure about that.
The legislation is in place to make that possible. The Minister has been in consultation with some national sporting organisations. I suggest the Deputy asks the Minister concerned about that matter.
The Tánaiste will be aware of the deep sense of injustice felt by the victims of childhood abuse in day schools, who have been excluded from the Residential Institutions Redress Bill. At this eleventh hour before the Bill is passed in the Seanad tomorrow, will the Government reconsider the exclusion of this category of victims? This is deeply unfair.
That question is not in order.
We have waited five years for he long promised Ombudsman for Children Bill. Is there any chance that Bill will be taken next week in the final week of this Dáil, or was it just another publicity stunt?
I understand the Bill will be published shortly but it will not be enacted before the Easter recess.
The Bill was published some weeks ago. The Seanad has dealt with it. Is there any possibility that we will deal with it in the Dáil next week?
The Chief Whip assures me he will do his best to have it taken shortly.
I thought it would have priority.
In June of last year the people ratified a change in the Constitution to enable us to join in the establishment of the International Criminal Court. The Government has done nothing to complete the ratification process. The court will come into operation when 60 states ratify the treaty. It has been ratified by 56 states and the court will come into operation in a matter of months but we will not be involved. Why has the Government shown such incompetence and delay in producing the necessary legislation to enable us to ratify it?
The legislation is pending but I cannot give a date for its publication.
Another job for us in the next Government.
It is a matter of great disappointment that haemophiliacs have still not seen the hepatitis C compensation tribunal Bill, which is long promised. Yesterday, I asked the Taoiseach about this Bill and about the Government's view on the provision of a second tribunal. The first tribunal set up to consider this issue was deficient in that it could not or would not investigate international pharmaceutical companies.
Can I have the Tánaiste's commitment that a Bill, which it was promised would be published before Easter, will be published, so that even though the Government will not deal with the issue the legislation will, at least, be published?
The Bill will be published shortly after Easter, before we resume after the Easter recess.
Can the Government explain the disgraceful announcement yesterday regarding the provision of gas in towns throughout the country?
The Deputy is out of order.
This is a very serious matter.
Then it should be raised in an appropriate way. The Deputy is out of order and should resume his seat.
You have not interrupted anyone else this morning, a Cheann Comhairle. I want the Government to explain the disgraceful events of yesterday. Did ministerial commitments affect the decisions announced yesterday?
The Gas (Interim)(Regulation) Bill is the next item on the Order Paper.
The Minister for Education and Science has ruined the education system. He is a disgrace and should be quiet.
I call Deputy Crawford. Deputy Belton should resume his seat and allow his colleague to ask a question.
I want the Government to explain its disgraceful behaviour.
I call Deputy Crawford. If Deputy Crawford does not wish to proceed I will conclude the Order of Business. We now proceed with the business of the day.