Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

Before Christmas, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government called a press conference and told the country it was important the general election be held soon. He gave the reasons for this. He said the Green Party would remain in government to see the budget through and the general election would be called before the end of January. It is open to interpretation whether he meant that the election would take place before the end of January or the dissolution would take place before the end of January. That issue is not at stake. The intention was that the budget would be announced, the finance Bill would be published and debated in the Dáil and a general election called before the end of January. When the Government announced we were returning on 12 January, it was expected that this was in pursuit of that objective. The expectation was that we would take two to three weeks to pass the finance Bill and the general election would then be called. Since then, we have been told there are four Bills that must be dealt with in order to give effect to budgetary measures.

On top of that, the Taoiseach says we must pass the NAMA Bill because it is required by the EU-IMF agreement. As I read the agreement, one can argue that any item of legislation the Government wants to pick from the legislative programme can be justified as being necessary and required by the EU-IMF agreement.

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