Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

——is a Government that is politically and economically dysfunctional, that is adrift and that is now staggering exhausted to the Christmas break.

One thing after another the Taoiseach is not getting right. He has not got the banks right. He told us on Sunday that there was going to be a €10 billion rescue plan and when I asked him direct questions on it yesterday, he could not answer a single one of them. We are no wiser today about what he is going to do about the banks than we were last week.

On the economy, the Taoiseach stated two weeks ago we did not need an economic recovery plan. At the beginning of this week he stated he had such a plan. We still have not seen it. We are now told it is some kind of a framework. When will we see this economic recovery plan that the Taoiseach has been talking about and dining over in Farmleigh? The problem is that the Taoiseach is not governing. The country has serious economic, social and service problems that are not being addressed by his Government and people are becoming increasingly depressed by that.

Everybody knows that the country is facing enormous challenges and economic difficulties and people are prepared to step up to the plate and to address them collectively. However, the problem we have in this country is that we do not have a Government which is giving leadership and direction and providing any sense that there is a solution and that we can get through these difficult times.

Is the Taoiseach serious about closing down the House for six weeks in these times? When will he tell us what the Government will do about the banks? When will we get the detail of these health cuts about which the Minister for Health and Children is talking? When will we see the economic recovery plan about which the Taoiseach has been talking?

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