Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Labour Party does not agree to any proposal on the Order of Business today because of the manner in which the Government is dealing with the budget debate and the arrangements for the Social Welfare and Pensions (No. 2) Bill.

We have just had probably the most severe budget in living memory. The least the people who are affected by that budget, those who are having their pay and various payments cut, including child benefit and family payments, are entitled to, is that the representatives they elect to Dáil Éireann are given an opportunity to express their opinion about the budget and to speak on it. The arrangements being proposed in the House effectively mean that the budget debate will end by lunch time today, less than 24 hours after the budget was announced. We have never had a situation before where the budget debate has been curtailed in that way.

Second, arrangements are being proposed for the Social Welfare and Pensions (No. 2) Bill that are for the political convenience and political cover of Government Deputies. Those arrangements to put through the Social Welfare and Pensions (No. 2) Bill by the weekend, which was only published a few hours ago, are to ensure that none of the Government Deputies wobble when they meet constituents who are affected by the provisions of the Bill.

Those arrangements have not happened by accident. I have been raising with the Taoiseach in the House since October first the date of the budget. It took me several weeks to get out of him that the Government was changing the normal date of the budget from the first week in December to the second week in December. I pointed out at the time that it would leave very little time for debate on the budget. I did not know then, nor did any of us, that the budget would be accompanied by two pieces of controversial legislation, a new social welfare Bill and a Bill to cut pay. It took me quite some time to get out of the Taoiseach also that a social welfare Bill would be published and when it would be published. What we have are arrangements that are designed to ensure that no supporter of the Government disappears from the voting lobby. They have been herded into the House this week and they will be got through the lobby before they get out on Friday evening.

Whatever excuse people have who are subject to a Whip, there are six Deputies who are not subject to a Whip, namely, Deputy Healy Rae, Deputy Lowry, Deputy Grealish, who declare themselves to be Independents, and Deputy McDaid, Deputy Devins and Deputy Scanlon, who tell us that they are no longer subject to the Whip. All of those Deputies are free to vote as they wish on those Bills but the arrangements that are being proposed in the House amount to a devious and undemocratic political device that is denying the right of Members of the House-----

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