Alex White (Labour)

The document to which Senator O'Toole referred is the one which the Leader told us yesterday we had been discussing on Tuesday. It was published in The Irish Times yesterday and we manifestly could not have discussed it the previous day because we did not have it in our possession. I ask the Leader to acknowledge that, unless he was confusing it with the other frameworks that are knocking around, including one from before Christmas. We asked for the most recent document to be made available to assist and inform us in our debate on the economy. It was not made available and while I do not infer that the Leader was trying to mislead Members, it was simply wrong and inaccurate of him to state in his closing comments yesterday that we had debated it the previous day. How could we have debated something we had not seen? I ask for the matter to be corrected on the record.

Senator Fitzgerald is correct that a serious democratic deficit, to coin a phrase, must be addressed. I take the view that the Government has not the slightest intention of involving these Houses in this debate at a serious level, despite what Senator Boyle believes should happen. I give him credit for some of the statements he has made in this House but, if he is pushing that position, he has not got far with his colleagues in Government because they are excluding these Houses entirely. The Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Hanafin, gave the game away on "Morning Ireland" this morning. I am interested in words and what they mean. I am not a subscriber to the Humpty Dumpty approach of words meaning what people want them to mean. The Minister said this morning that negotiations would proceed and that the Government would seek the agreement of the social partners and the support of the Oireachtas. That is the Government's position. It regards the Houses of the Oireachtas as cheerleaders for an agreement reached elsewhere. I entirely agree with Senator Fitzgerald. This is a serious issue and it is not good enough in any democracy for the Taoiseach and his Ministers to have fits of pique and storm away like schoolboys when asked for a debate in these Houses.

I ask the Leader to arrange a debate with the Minister for Transport on the cuts in Dublin Bus. Again on the issue of language, Senator Boyle sought to persuade us last night that these were not cuts even though his colleague, Deputy Cuffe, has described them in print as service cutbacks. The company has made 290 staff redundant and 120 buses have been taken off the streets. If these are not cuts, what are they? Surely, they will impact on service. Bus lanes in the north and south of the city have been set aside for buses which are being taken off the streets. This is coming from a Government party which proclaimed prior to the general election that it favoured public over private transport. It is ludicrous. We need to hold a debate on the question of public transport and I ask the Leader to facilitate this.