Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

The Taoiseach has difficulty divvying up the truth. He has forced the tribunal to keep digging, as was its right and remit. However, cowardice came into play this week. Suddenly, the Government was not really attacking the tribunal. In Fianna Fáil's amendment, it accepts the independence of the Mahon tribunal and has removed any of the references to bias and lack of fairness made by successive Ministers before Christmas. Fianna Fáil accepts the tribunal is doing its job independently and well, for which I thank the party, but this is a new variation of the Fianna Fáil characteristic of opportunism, namely, opportunism by cowardice. It is watering down what it stated originally and relying on the pathetic acquiescence of the Progressive Democrats and the equally disgraceful collusion of the Green Party. Play the numbers game and the Taoiseach will hang on.

Yesterday, the Irish Independent described the events as "Ahern's GUBU day". We believed that we had got away from the era of GUBU, putting it behind us long ago.

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