Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

At a minimum, it required that the Taoiseach pick up the telephone and contact him but he was too busy making other telephone calls to do the country's business.

As regards the Taoiseach's take on unemployment, I do not know whether he is aware that a lot of people are leaving the country because they cannot get work here. When the Taoiseach plays around with the figures and says the rate is lower than it was another month or whatever, he is not factoring in the number of young people, many with very good qualifications, who are giving up in despair at what the Taoiseach is doing to this country and are emigrating.

The reality is that people are out of work and are not able to get work and those who are in work are suffering a loss in their income. The Taoiseach needs to answer a question very soon. People all over the country want to know when he and his Government will get out of office. They keep asking me and I am sure they keep asking other members of the House when we will get rid of the Government.

The Taoiseach has given his party a secret ballot on his future as leader of the party and I wish him the best of luck. When will he give the people of the country a secret ballot to decide his and his Government's future as leaders of the country? From what I can see, the ploy since we returned after Christmas has been that the election which was supposed to have been called by the end of January has now become an election that will take place or be called before the end of March. The Minister, Deputy Dempsey, said today the election will take place in two or three months.

The date for the election is going from one month to the next and it is clear that the Taoiseach's strategy is to cling on to office for as long as possible in the hope that something turns up because his agenda is more about his party's survival and fortunes than the good of the country.

See this speech in context