Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

All of us are taken aback by the statements early this morning. I want to focus on one point, namely, political accountability. Government Members in this Chamber have mentioned that the scale of the debts is manageable but the reality is that the people who will manage them are not the Minister for Finance or the Taoiseach but the people in our communities who will see more cuts inflicted as a result of today's announcement. This must be resisted. There is talk about national government, which might have happened because the polls for the first time have shown that both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil combined have less than 50% support of the people, so it would not really be a national government if that were the case.

I want to propose an amendment to the Order of Business in the context of political accountability. It is important that we look forward but we also need to have political accountability. Particularly given the RTE "Freefall" programme, which Members of the Government might not have seen because of the think-in in Galway at the time, we have seen clearly what happened and who was informed in regard to the insolvency of Anglo Irish Bank, a bank which was guaranteed because the Minister for Finance came in and briefed Members of these Houses that it was a liquidity issue — a cash flow issue — not a solvency issue. Whether the Minister for Finance deliberately lied to people of these Houses and withheld information in regard to that matter——