Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

The House will soon break for St. Patrick's Day and Easter and this will be the last we see of the Taoiseach. We have only passed three Bills during this session and of 17 Bills only five have been published. There is a growing sense of paralysis on the other side of the House and I do not know its cause, though many will speculate in that regard. This paralysis is manifesting itself in the activity of this Government. At the moment killings occur almost on a weekly basis, unemployment has risen to record levels of 2,000 per week, revenues have melted away by €500 million in the first two months of the year, growth prospects are down by a third and the Government appears to be unable to produce legislation.

Gridlock is a week to week occurrence so why is there still no Dublin transport authority? There is still no nursing home subvention support scheme, though it was promised to be published before Christmas and many families are awaiting a decision in this regard. Why do we still not have the employment rights legislation that was promised and was a core element of the last round of social partnership negotiations?

Why are Ministers unable to come forward to deliver promised changes? The worst example of this relates to public transport reform, which was promised by the then Minister for Public Enterprise, Deputy O'Rourke, in 2001, yet the Public Transport Regulation Bill will not even be published during this session. We need the Government to make decisions and implement commitments already made but this is not evident in this House. We are not seeing the standard of legislation that we ought to.

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