Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Taoiseach. I am well aware of the programme for Government and what is in it. Members of this House who support the Government are referring to understandings or deals they have done with the Taoiseach, the Government or individual Ministers. I have read the programme for Government and other documentation in this regard on which I could lay my hands and saw no reference in it to any such deals with the Taoiseach or the Government. There appears to be at play here some form of political manoeuvring in that certain Deputies are implying they have done deals with the Government or have agreements with Ministers, individually or collectively, on certain issues pertaining to their constituencies, be that in regard to hospitals, schools, roads, railway lines and so on. Given that the Taoiseach stated on the record of the House that he would publish everything, what are we to believe when we hear these Deputies refer to such deals? I take it from the Taoiseach's response today that all utterances from such Deputies are untrue. They are not included in the programme for Government or in any published documents and have not been in any way objectively assessed to be appropriate in the context of Government spending.

Am I to take it from what the Taoiseach said today, despite his get-out-jail clause to the effect that other issues arise and things change - they cannot have changed in the past two months - that no such deals exist in writing, that as such there is no such documentation and that what is being stated in the public domain is untrue? If that is the case, if I or any Member of this House were to come into the possession of documentation that would demonstrate that any of said deals do exist, which some Ministers or Ministers of State are confirming, what am I to do and how will the Taoiseach respond? In such a scenario, unfortunately, I or another Member would have to come into this House and say that the Taoiseach had misled the House. We do not want to end up in that scenario.

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