Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

It would appear the Government is determined to start the new year the way it finished the old one. There was a great deal of hope that the mismanagement, incompetence, waste and unwillingness to answer questions of last year would have gone out with the calendar year but we have begun on the same note this year. The Minister for Finance admitted he knew about this on 17 January, yet a schedule of business circulated to the House last week contained no reference to it. An amended schedule of business was circulated at midday yesterday and it contained no reference to it. At 4.28 p.m. yesterday the Minister for Finance by fax issued a statement with minimal information, 20 minutes before the matter was to be raised in the House.

I have known the Minister for a long time and I would never have previously accused him of political cowardice and sleight of hand but that was what was engaged in yesterday, including a misuse of the Standing Order that permits personal statements in the House. I ask the Leas-Cheann Comhairle's esteemed advisers in front to put up Standing Order 43 in front of him. It provides for a personal statement "that shall be brief, non-argumentative and strictly personal and shall not be such as would give cause to further debate or explanation". There was nothing personal about the statement yesterday; it was of the most fundamental political and public importance.

This error would not be made by a first-year accountancy student. Such a student who could not distinguish between capital and current would not be allowed to continue his or her course. It appears nobody on the Government Front Bench read a bank statement. We had an explanation this morning that defied belief from somebody describing himself as chief finance officer of the HSE. One did not know whether the money was missing; the implication was he would find it again before St. Patrick's Day. I do not know the genealogy of the man in question but he should be put in control of the national finances because he does not seem to think the money is missing and, if it is, he will find it.

It is not acceptable that the personal statement provision should be used in this fashion by the Minister for Finance to sneak in on an unsuspecting House and confess to this scale of cock-up by the Department of Health and Children, the HSE and the Tánaiste, who is responsible as the political head of that Department. The time provided for the matter put to the House of ten minutes for party leaders to make a contribution and ten minutes for the combined Opposition to put questions to the Tánaiste is entirely inadequate. She is perfectly capable of giving one reply that will take up the ten minutes. It is not a fair way to ventilate a subject such as this. The taxpayer will be appalled to learn the Government parties have embarked on a new year in which they intend to continue waste, lose and mismanage public money.

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