Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

Let me start again. The reason the Labour Party is opposing the Order of Business today is because there exists a set of serious economic circumstances in Europe, currently concentrated in Greece, and at the heart of these problems, decisions are being made by private ratings agencies that are determining the credit rating of individual countries. The same ratings agencies have a very poor record and have got it wrong repeatedly before. There is a proposal before the EU summit tomorrow to consider the idea of a European independent ratings agency. This House should have the opportunity to discuss that proposal, should know whether our Government will support that idea or not, and whether the Taoiseach will advocate the idea at that summit.

We all want to be helpful to the Government on this issue. This is not something on which we want to have political division. There is a national interest. We want to have an agreed national position on this very important matter, but we can only do that if the Government is prepared to discuss the issue in the House in a mature, reasoned way. So far, there is no proposal for a discussion and the Bill to allow the Government make the contribution to the assistance for Greece will not be presented for three weeks.

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