Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)

It is a serious matter when a political party tables a motion of no confidence, and I am sure the Green Party did not do so lightly. The public and Members have lost confidence in the Minister. Governments become arrogant and complacent when in office for a long time, and the Minister, Deputy Cullen, has fallen into that trap. Having listened to the debate, I hope he will learn from it. The Minister thanked the Green Party for tabling the motion and referred to the party on several occasions, with three favourable mentions during his contribution.

I will deal with just two aspects of the Minister's failure, first electronic voting, which will be dealt with in more detail tomorrow. I wonder what is driving the Minister in this regard? Most Ministers would like to have a monument to their achievement — for example, the Taoiseach failed to deliver the Bertie bowl. I hope the Minister for Health and Children's monument does not go up in smoke. The Minister, Deputy Cullen, thought electronic voting would be a suitable monument, but the issue was handled so badly that the Opposition, the public and perhaps the Minister's partners in government were not behind the Minister.

I am conscious of this issue because I am on the environment committee with Deputy Allen and other Members and I remember clearly the manner in which this matter was handled at the environment committee on 18 December, when in a premature vote the Government members stifled further debate on it that day. The contract was signed the next day, 19 December, yet we found out under the Freedom of Information Act that three months before the contract was signed, €20 million worth of machines had been important to Ireland and 1,100 machines had been delivered to Ireland before they were verified in September. If the Minister had been in a public company, he would have been sacked immediately. Those are some of the reasons that the Green Party has tabled this motion of no confidence.

The Minister referred to the Green Party motion as a stunt, but since the Minister shaved off his beard, the greatest bare-faced stunt — pardon the pun — that he produced is the pretence to be in favour of once-off rural houses, pretending to the councillors and people in rural areas that he will change this area. I challenge the Minister that no planning permission will be granted before 11 June 2004 to a person who was previously refused permission

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