MINISTER FOR Finance Brian Lenihan renewed his attack on the Green Party for pulling out of Government. He said the country needed continuity of Government but didn’t get it and those responsible “will have to take the judgment of history on their shoulders”.
But Green Party chairman Dan Boyle rejected the claim that “my party is responsible for the state of the country”. He said the Greens “have done what we have done in Government believing it has been the right thing to do” for the “best interests of the country”.
The Minister also warned Fine Gael that it will have to take action to reform the Seanad because the public “will not tolerate a party which enters government and dishonours its word”.
He repeated a number of Opposition election promises, including the Fine Gael pledge to reverse the minimum wage cut, and asked if the party leader and finance spokesman had told EU commission president Manuel Barroso about this proposal at their meeting in Brussels.
He was speaking on Saturday in the Seanad debate on the Finance Bill which the Upper House passed by 30 votes to 20 without accepting any recommendations, avoiding a recall of the Dáil that night.
Mr Lenihan warned that the Opposition would move away from his “four-year manifesto” at their “peril” and suggested that the Seanad, which under the Constitution still exists for 90 days after the dissolution of the Dáil, might have to sit again to deal with legislation necessary to meet Ireland’s EU-IMF commitments.
The Minister also rejected a recommendation by Independent Senator David Norris that every reference in the Bill to spouses should be taken to include those in civil partnerships, after tax provisions for such couples were excluded from the truncated Bill. He said however that tax provisions for such couples would be retrospective when included in a supplementary finance Bill to be introduced by the next government.
During a heated debate on sections of the legislation, the Minister said there was an argument for the dissolution of the Dáil when the Green Party decided in late November on a “constitutionally extraordinary position that effectively they withdrew confidence from a Government but said they would go back into office to do certain things”.
He said the country needed continuity of Government in those few months but did not get it. Labour Senator Alex White intervened and said “the Taoiseach was challenged from within”.
Mr Lenihan said: “Those who are responsible for not giving it will have to take the judgment of history on their shoulders.”
Mr Boyle, however, said it seemed to be “beyond understanding at the moment” that a party could leave Government and “on occasion make independent decisions”.
This was a “story and a narrative that has gained currency” but he said the Greens in Government had done what they believed “has been the right thing to do for the reason that it has been in the best interests of the country”. They were proud of their work in Government “and if that’s misunderstood then history will record its verdict”.
Earlier Mr Lenihan said it was “politically inevitable” that the Seanad would be reformed.
He said he believed the Seanad would be reconstituted as a smaller body. “But it must continue as an important dimension in our Constitution which provides a reflective capacity for legislation”.
