Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

Can the Leader confirm when the Finance Bill will come into the House? Is it the case that the Bill will not reach the House until 24, 25 and 26 February? That is quite a delay.

Today, many families are feeling the impact of poor decision making by the Government. They see their incomes slashed and their social welfare payments cut. They hear about huge rises in VHI premia, which is of serious concern to so many families. There are increased numbers of trolleys in accident and emergency departments and families are having appalling experiences. Along with this, we hear more and more about information that was made available to the Taoiseach and which he did not put on the record of the Dáil or explain. This raises serious questions for those hard-pressed families, who are paying the price of bailing out the banks, about the Taoiseach's political judgment and the decisions he has taken. For example, one hears of a dinner at which the Taoiseach was told by Anglo Irish Bank directors that the NTMA had concerns about that bank and would not place money on deposit with it. In common with many other Members, I recall that when Deputy Kenny and others raised these questions in the Dáil, they were told by the Taoiseach that he treated the questions with contempt. He should have put this information on the record and explained the reason he supported Anglo Irish Bank in the manner he did given the information that had been brought to his attention. I do not believe the Green Party needs a Sherlock Holmes to find out what was going on. The question is how much more will the Green Party tolerate, given the kind of information that has entered the public domain in recent days. People have been expressing concerns about Anglo Irish Bank for some years and the Taoiseach, who was Minister for Finance, appears to expect the people to believe he was oblivious to concerns on the part of the NTMA about Anglo Irish Bank. Members should discuss this issue in the House today and I propose an amendment to the Order of Business to the effect that Members have a debate on the interaction of the NTMA with the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach in the run-up to the introduction of the bank guarantee scheme.