Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Labour Party will not agree to any proposal on the Order of Business today until we have an assurance from the Taoiseach that the manner of dealing with the Combat Poverty Agency will be changed. The Minister for Finance announced in his Budget Statement that the Combat Poverty Agency was one of a number of State agencies to be wound up or amalgamated. Since then I have asked on a number of occasions on the Order of Business the legislative provision that would be made for that, whether all of these agencies would be done by separate legislation or a single piece of legislation, and I got various answers. On Friday evening, the Minister for Social and Family Affairs circulated a set of amendments in which she is proposing to add an additional Part to the normal Social Welfare Bill, and that is a Part to dissolve the Combat Poverty Agency.

This agency was established by the late Frank Cluskey. Its purpose was to provide an independent body to deal with issues of poverty and advise government on them. This Government has travelled a long way from Inchydoney in that the first State body it wants to get its thumb into is the body dealing with the issue of poverty. I am extremely disappointed at the cowardly and sneaky way——

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