Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Labour Party will not agree the Order of Business today because of the manner in which the Government is rail-roading measures through the Dáil. I refer to the cuts in social welfare, which it rail-roaded through on Friday last using a guillotine, and this proposal to rail-road through the cuts in pay, again by the use of a guillotine.

All of this is part of a piece of clever pre-Christmas choreography by the Government, first, to have the budget a week late limiting the amount of time there would be for a budget debate and then to have two pieces of legislation giving effect to the unfair measures contained in the budget, both of which it plans to have rammed through before the Christmas in the hope that people will put it behind them over Christmas and it will minimise the amount of grief that they get for it. This approach is not acceptable to the Labour Party and for that reason, the Labour Party will not agree to the Order of Business.

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