THE GOVERNMENT voted confidence in itself, by 85 votes to 79, after a two-day debate.

Independents Jackie Healy- Rae and Michael Lowry supported the Government’s motion, while Fine Gael, Labour, Sinn Féin and Independents Finian McGrath, Joe Behan and Maureen O’Sullivan opposed it.

The Government motion was in response to a Fine Gael motion of no confidence, moved in the aftermath of last Friday’s elections.

Closing the debate for the Government, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said it was plain that the electorate was very angry and he understood why.

“People have lost jobs. They have lost savings. They have lost pensions,” he added.

“Living standards have fallen. Parents are worried about the future of their children. These are the human manifestations of the worst global recession since the Great Depression eight decades ago.” He was not suggesting, he said, that all the economic difficulties were down to global factors.

He added: “I am well aware of the contribution our housing bubble has made to our economic downturn.

“As I stated previously, with the benefit of hindsight, more should have been done to contain the housing market which was fuelled by very low interest rates and the ready availability of credit. I readily acknowledge that and so has the Taoiseach.

“However, I am nauseated by the dishonesty of an Opposition that, time and again, courted the electorate with its calls for the abolition of stamp duty, effectively the only control mechanism we had on the property market.”

Mr Lenihan said that the two- day debate had been a sham, with Fine Gael going through “the cliché- ridden motions joined, on this occasion, by a reluctant Labour Party”.

Minister for Health Mary Harney said that motions of no confidence were matters that should be taken seriously.

“They are not opportunities for shouting at each other, heckling, cartoon politics or cheap stunts, but means of putting forward our particular perspectives, especially in the context of the serious economic challenges facing the country,” she added.

Ms Harney said that Ireland was no different from many other countries, although our economic difficulties might have been compounded by some issues relating to property.

“However, as an exporting country, dependent for its survival on 80 per cent of what we produce being sent abroad, we are more adversely affected by the economic crisis than almost any other country in the world,” she added.

Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan challenged Opposition TDs to imagine themselves in the position of being in government last September, shortly after Lehman Brothers collapsed in the US and the whole international banking system had come to a grinding halt.

“The lesson that had been learned in the previous weeks of just letting the banks go had been calamitous. Think of what the consequences would have been for this country. Deputies should put themselves in the position of making that call.

“Would they be willing to risk it and see if the whole banking system would collapse or survive?” Mr Ryan asked.