Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

If the Taoiseach would give the House real information, I would happily give way to him, but he said nothing in his ten minutes. He behaved exactly as he did during Leaders' Questions this afternoon, in that he danced on the head of a pin around a concoction of words that was probably put together by an official in the Department of Finance and which provided no information whatsoever.

Let us be clear. I welcome the opportunity at any time to discuss this urgent matter in the House. In order to do so constructively, we need information from the Government as to what talks are ongoing in Europe and what talks have been held in Europe in recent days, but the Taoiseach told us nothing about them. He is hiding behind words. We are long beyond the stage of hiding behind words. The bluffing and fibbing that have been ongoing for two years are part of the problem because they are part of the reason the markets and the Irish people have no confidence in the Government. When will the Taoiseach ever learn? When will he consider returning honesty and integrity to the project that is government in this State? It does not exist currently. It simply is not there.

The banking crisis has been at the centre of policy and the Government for two years while the latter ignored any stimulus. By and large, it also ignored anything to do with job retention and job creation. It announced some 650,000 in the past six months, but where are they? This is further bluff and nonsense. In the same way, the House was misled in September 2008 when we were told the banks were not too serious a problem and that it was down to a liquidity issue. We were to get over that hump, introduce the guarantee and live happily ever after. It was nonsense. We now know that the Taoiseach was sitting in the Department of Finance with the very characters who, alongside the Government, created this mess. Did they not tell him the truth? According to some of the innuendo in reports, they shared with the Taoiseach how seriousness of the situation.

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