Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

We had a somewhat similar exchange at exactly this time last year when I, on behalf of the Labour Party, asked the Taoiseach not to put the Dáil into recess because of the deteriorating economic situation. I proposed a motion at the time in which I said that the live register figures had gone through the 200,000 barrier and that the economic situation was deteriorating. At the time the Taoiseach seemed to adopt the attitude that the economic business of the country was the private business of the Government which would do what it had to do. It returned here last September in a panic and stumbled from one crisis to another ever since. It would appear that the Government has learned nothing.

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