Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I thank the Taoiseach for his compliment about my diligence in carrying out my constituency duties. I am always happy to acknowledge the Government's munificence, although I have not seen much of it of late.

The Taoiseach says there is a political agreement with Deputies Healy-Rae and Lowry. That is fine. The agreement has never been spelt out or set out in the House. I do not know what is in the agreement. It could simply be that the two Deputies are enthralled by the brilliance of the Government and enthusiastically support it. Does the support of the two Deputies involve commitments of public expenditure that are above and beyond what would happen anyway?

I understood from the Taoiseach's first answer that there was no such commitment and that the arrangement the Deputies had was the same as anyone else, namely, that they could talk to the Minister for Finance or whatever. In his last response, the Taoiseach seems to imply that there were such commitments. If so then in the current situation, where every area of public expenditure is under scrutiny, we should be told what they are. If there are no such commitments for public expenditure in the constituencies of the two Deputies we should, similarly, be told that. On the one hand the Taoiseach is saying they get no commitment other than what any Deputy, even an Opposition Deputy, might expect while on the other hand, he is half implying that there might be something more involved but he is not telling us whether there is or not.

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