Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

No, there will not be ample time - that is the whole problem. The proposal from the Government is that the statements on the statement made officially by the Minister for Finance this morning on the full cost of the banking bailout should conclude at 3.30 p.m. today. This means that, in effect, the Government is proposing that the Dáil be given between two hours and 2.5 hours to discuss the biggest Bill that any Government has ever introduced. There is no reason statements should end at 3.30 p.m. or why they could not continue tomorrow during a sitting of the House. There is no reason the item cannot remain on the Order Paper until every single Member of the Dáil who wants to make a contribution does so. There is no parliamentary reason for a time limit on this debate. Statements can be continued until the opportunity is given to every Member to contribute. They can be worked into the schedule of the Dáil next week, the week after or later until every Member has the opportunity of contributing. If ever there were a case for this to apply, it is in this case. We are talking about the biggest sum of money we have ever talked about.

The focus is understandably on Anglo Irish Bank, in respect of which we are told the total required will be between €29.3 billion and €34.3 billion. However, when one adds in the recapitalisation money for all the other banks, one will note that the total is between approximately €45 billion and €50 billion. We are a long way from the circumstances that obtained when the Minister for Finance told us on 24 October 2008 that the bank bailout was the cheapest in the world. We have now been told the final bill. This is the price of failure. It is the price of the property bubble, of the light regulation that Fianna Fáil has presided over, of bad government and of the blanket bank guarantee. It is the bill that Fianna Fáil is leaving to the people of this country. It amounts to between €45 billion and €50 billion.

It is not acceptable for the Government, on leaving that bill to the people, to give Members until 3.30 p.m. today to say their piece on it. It is no more acceptable than the dishonest way that the Taoiseach dealt with the question yesterday when I asked him if he knew what the figure was. He said he did not and that the Financial Regulator had not given it to him yet, but that we might be able to have a Dáil debate about it. We were hardly outside the door when we discovered an article on the Financial Times website based on an interview given by the Minister for Finance, which interview he had to have given before he came into the House at 7 p.m. yesterday. Most of the information that was eventually announced publicly this morning was signalled in that interview. That is, at the very least, discourtesy the Dáil.

I formally propose an amendment to the Government's proposal this morning to prevent the conclusion of the motion at 3.30 p.m. It should be left open ended such that we can return to it. If we want to sit tomorrow, we will be able to return to tomorrow. Otherwise we can continue next week and reschedule the statements until every single Member of the House has an opportunity to speak on it.

See this speech in context