Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail)

I, too, look forward to the budget proposals when they are announced. It is important to note the speculation in the newspapers is coming directly from Cabinet Ministers. It is very unfortunate because either a genuine battle is taking place to protect certain things or a sham battle is happening which is putting the fear of God into the Irish citizenry, only to then have proposals announced which are better than those initially circulated. It is a disgraceful way to treat people in the run-up to a budget and it is happening directly from leaks.

We all crave stable government after the general election. There seems to be a huge instability in the Fine Gael and Labour Party Government. I want to draw a matter to the attention of the Leader. There was a major leak from the office of the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, on the issue of Ministers driving in bus lanes. While it is of concern to some peoplem, it is not a huge concern of mine. The Minister seems to have gone to newspapers to remove himself from the decision and try to absolve himself of responsibility. That is a brand-new departure in Irish politics. A Minister has never distanced himself so openly from the decision.

It is about time Ministers stopped doing this, acted collectively and confidentially, conducted their business around the Cabinet table, took the difficult decisions that are necessary in the interests of the country and stopped protecting their own positions. It is very dangerous and I am calling for a debate on collective responsibility in Cabinet. We are seeing huge breaches of it, in terms of the budget leaks and the other issue to which I referred. It is a small issue but it is important to make the point.

My party will introduce a Bill next week on interest rates and forcing the regulator to do what the Taoiseach said it and the banks would be forced to do. Nothing has happened. We had a lot of waffle last week from the Minister of State, Deputy Hayes. The House can vote for or against the proposition next week. It will be a well drafted Bill.

I want to raise the issue of the pension levy. We objected to the Finance (No. 2) Bill. Colleagues may remember we tabled an amendment to the Bill which would have mandated pension funds to absorb the charge, something which was opposed by the Government in the Bill. It was voted down by the Government side last week. The Minister, Deputy Noonan, wrote to pensioners to tell them there is scope for the pensions industry to absorb the impact of the levy from fee income and charges and he has written to it in that regard. We now have a new departure. The Minister will write to the pensions industry but not mandate something.

I second the proposal of Senator O'Brien.