Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In making any negotiations, the starting position is to enter the process or get out of it. During the general election campaign Sinn Féin had an economic policy that meant we would run out of money on 1 July 2011. I thought they would have matured since then and that we would have engaged in a reasonable economic debate in terms of their budgetary proposals. Members of this House have said they have put parliamentary questions to the Department of Finance and it is a fact, but they have done so on a very selective basis. They have not undertaken a comprehensive examination. The only way that can be done on a budgetary proposal is by engaging with the service the Department of Finance facilitates. In answer to a parliamentary question, the Minister for Finance told my colleague, Deputy Arthur Spring, that no Opposition party had availed of that service. That is an irrefutable fact and I challenge anyone on the Opposition benches to deny it. I see Opposition Deputies have become silent.

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