Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

The €150 million for public transport is gone. There is nothing in it about bulbs, carrots or parsnips, so where are the fingerprints? Then it dawned on me that the Deputy was referring to the delivery of Dáil reform. That is where Deputy Gormley is now taking shelter, as he hid from the photograph of the Cabinet press conference yesterday. He is responsible for Dáil reform, but when one examines it one must ask where it is. In yesterday's budget there was a list of severe cuts for Deputies, which are necessary given the current state of the country and the necessity to provide a lead. It includes cutting pensions for former Ministers, but how is that Dáil reform? The only element of Dáil reform listed concerns the committees, but the Minister for Finance said the Oireachtas Commission would deal with them. The committees are creatures of the Taoiseach, not of the Oireachtas Commission, so I do not know where Dáil reform is set out in this package.

I find it hard to stomach the Minister, Deputy Gormley, lecturing us on the cuts that should be made. Ever since the media started the campaign about add-ons created by the former Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, the Minister, Deputy Gormley - since his speech in Dundalk and a half a dozen times since - has chosen to lecture the House on how he is going to clean up Dodge City. I find it interesting because he negotiated the formation of the Government with Deputy Bertie Ahern, who is the author of all the add-ons. I do not suppose anybody is arguing about the benchmarking of ordinary Deputies to principal officers in terms of salaries but Deputy Bertie Ahern's add-ons caused the media begrudgery and outcry.

What did Deputy Gormley say when he met Deputy Bertie Ahern to negotiate the formation of the Government? Did he ask how many committee chairs and Ministers of State he could have? Did he object at that time to any of these issues? He did not. He also asked that two Green Party Senators be appointed. Did he effect any changes in the stipend for these positions? Deputy Gogarty, who is a committee chairman, created an event of considerable moment when the news came from the Green Party conference that he was going to resign as party spokesperson on education. I did not know there was a party spokesperson on education in the Green Party and I certainly did not know that it was Deputy Gogarty. The remarkable thing, however, is that he did not forego the €20,000 stipend that came with his committee chairmanship. Some Deputies say, "Deputy Gogarty is a nice fellow, slightly eccentric. He rolls around on the floor at public meetings and asks Senator Frances Fitzgerald to tickle his belly, and people give him some indulgence for this". I do not believe he is daft, rather he is the biggest actor in this House. He has been getting away with it.

If one wants to go back a little further, what about the Minister of State, Deputy Sargent? I have read newspaper articles recently arguing that the reason for this country's casual acquaintance with ethics is its Catholic ethos and concepts such as the firm purpose of amendment. While the Minister of State is not a member of the majority faith, he is more Jesuitical than those who adhere to it. This is the man who said he would not lead the Green Party into government with Fianna Fáil. Although he did not do so, he got the Minister, Deputy Gormley, to lead his party into government, while he went in the back door and re-emerged as the Minister of State with responsibility for parsnips and organic tomatoes. That is the record of the Minister of State, Deputy Sargent.

The Minister, Deputy Gormley, has a decision to make if he wants to take the moral high ground. What will he do on the decision not to pay the Christmas bonus? He will have an opportunity to vote in the House on the few bob that is paid to social welfare recipients to make Christmas possible for them. We will see what the man who arranged with his predecessor, the Minister of State, Deputy Dick Roche, to make the decision on the M3 on the day before he entered government, does now on the Christmas bonus.

What is the biggest decision this Government has made since it came into office? Without doubt, it was the €440 billion underwriting of the reckless behaviour of untruthful bankers. Where was the Minister, Deputy Gormley? He was asleep in bed with his telephone switched off. A garda had to wake him up to tell him the two Brians had been up all night and had mortgaged the future of the country to save the banking system and, as the Taoiseach would have it and I do not question his motivation, to save the economy. It was a Monday night and the Minister had given instructions that his bicycle clips and helmet be left out for the following morning because when the cameras are present for Cabinet meetings it is important that he cycles to work, even though two Garda cars, one carrying the Minister's lunch box of Ryvita and tomato, follow him as he does so. The Minister had to be raised early that morning because he could not be found when the time came to make his decision.

A party that does not stand for anything will stand for nothing. That is the position the Green Party has arrived at and we will see now what its Deputies do on the Christmas bonus and other matters. For too long, the party has been flying beneath the radar. It is so preoccupied with saving the planet and other loftier issues that it has nothing to do with the state of the economy. We will see what it does but its performance until now has been lamentable.

I note the Minister of State, Deputy Sargent, has let the Taoiseach know that he is available to switch to another ministry. At this time of depression, that news must give the country a bit of a lift.

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