Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Tánaiste's reply to Deputy Kenny is very loyal and is very good for Fianna Fáil morale. We all know the Tánaiste can lead Fianna Fáil. The question is whether he can lead the country. This country now needs new leadership. The position the Taoiseach is in vis-À-vis the tribunal is one that has moved from benefit of the doubt to incredulity to embarrassment and it is moving on to ridicule. This cannot go on. The country needs to move on from this.

It is all very well to say that the tribunal should be allowed to finish its work and hear out all of the evidence, but how many stories do we have to hear? The Taoiseach did not have a bank account when he was Minister for Finance even though he was an accountant. The Taoiseach was so poor even on a ministerial salary that there had to be whip-arounds in a pub and in Manchester for him. At the same time we now know that there were accounts, some of which were controlled by some of the dig-out men, from which a loan for a house could be granted. The tribunal said the lodgements made to the Taoiseach's account was in dollars but he said he has a banker who can prove it was not dollars but when the tribunal came looking for the evidence, the Taoiseach went to court to stop them getting the calculations on which he based his claim.

The Taoiseach came before the House and stated he is tax compliant. He told the people in a television interview that he had paid all his taxes but he cannot get a tax clearance certificate. We can all stretch our credulity only so far. We could say that maybe some of these stories are true but not all of them. The Taoiseach's position regarding public credibility and political authority is untenable. Clearly he will not go voluntarily but intends to brazen it out. As we saw in the motion of no confidence, the Opposition does not have the numbers to force him to resign. The Green Party will not exercise whatever political position it has to cause that to happen. It falls to the Tánaiste and I am not naive enough to expect the Tánaiste to tell us he will go to the Taoiseach, bring him the bad news and advise him about what he must do. However I expect him to do so and I expect to be able to interpret the answer he gives here as some signal that he will do it.

This cannot go on forever. Politics in this country and the business of government must be enabled to return to the issues of the people. As long as the Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, is before the tribunal giving these kinds of unbelievable explanations, we are in "the dog ate my homework" territory. We need some firm leadership and the only person who can provide that is the Tánaiste.

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