I move:

That Dáil Éireann has complete confidence in the Minister for Defence, Deputy Willie O'Dea.

These are challenging times, possibly the most challenging facing any Government for decades, and the progress of many projects and plans will be subject to constraints on resources. Following on from the difficult decisions we took in the budget and the Estimates, and the review of the programme for Government, we now have a clear agenda for the future.

In the Department of Defence, the priority for the year ahead is to ensure that the Defence organisations maintain the capability to deliver on all of the roles assigned by Government. At the outset, I want to express my complete confidence, and that of the Government, in the Minister for Defence to continue to do his job.

In the midst of the worst global recession since the 1930s, arresting the decline in the strength of the Defence Forces and reaching the recently approved PDF strength of 10,000 will be achieved through prioritised recruitment, with the overarching focus remaining on the operations requirements of the Defence Forces. We are also committed to preparing a new defence White Paper for the period 2011-20 as we plan for the future. I believe the Minister for Defence, with his experience, his ability and his work ethic, is the best person to undertake this work.

I want to avail of the time this motion affords us to outline the massive contribution Deputy O'Dea has made in the Department of Defence. Before I do that, I want to put the Opposition's attack on the Minister in context. Its criticism of him does not arise from anything he has done in the course of his duties as Minister for Defence. I have heard people on the Opposition benches openly try to propagate the myth that the Minister is in breach of the Cabinet code of conduct, as set out in the handbook. This is once again a case of political discourse from the Opposition benches generating more heat than light. The matter of current controversy did not pertain to Deputy O'Dea's responsibilities as a Minister in the Government. It did not pertain to Government policies in any way, shape or form and had nothing to do with his function in the Department of Defence.

The facts are now well known. As the Minister said to the House yesterday, on 21 December a defamation action, taken against the Minister by Sinn Féin Councillor Maurice Quinlivan on foot of remarks made by the Minister in a local Limerick newspaper interview, was mutually agreed and settled in the High Court. As part of that settlement, a statement was read out in court which containing the following paragraph: "It is not suggested by Mr. Quinlivan that Mr. O'Dea acted other than innocently in making such denial and he accepts that there was no intention to mislead on the part of Mr. O'Dea". The Minister for Defence has acknowledged that his recollection of the interview in his original affidavit was wrong and he corrected his mistake when he realised it. He admitted and apologised for this mistake and agreed a settlement in which the other party fully accepted that there was no intention to mislead. The matter was a personal one between him and the local Sinn Féin representative concerned. It was dealt with and resolved in open court over two months ago and the matter is closed.

Clearly, it does not serve the Oireachtas well for people to throw around or imply ill-founded allegations of perjury in a coarse attempt to secure political advantage. Let us be clear, perjury does not arise here and it is despicable that some have suggested it does.

On a point of order, will the Taoiseach's script be circulated?

It will be circulated. My understanding is that where there is no intention to mislead and the matter is corrected as soon as possible, there is no question of perjury. The position is that for perjury to occur a person must know the statement to be false or not believe it to be true. Perjury in Ireland is governed by common law as the British Act of 1911 governing it never applied to Ireland. That Act is clear that a person has to give evidence which he "knows to be false or does not believe to be true". This formula has also been used in Irish statutes. Thus it is clear that perjury contrary to common law would also not arise where someone was mistaken.

The approach being taken by the Opposition parties indicates that they are once again trying to take the low road to high office. Their intent on a no confidence motion is completely spurious in both timing and motivation.

It is the standards which apply on the Government side that are under discussion.

On the issue of timing, Deputy Kenny informed the House yesterday that he found it "truly astonishing that two months after an issue in respect of a Cabinet Minister became public knowledge the Taoiseach did nothing about it. This is a matter of the most serious import." Who is the Deputy trying to fool?

Who is the Taoiseach trying to fool?

If he was of the view that this matter was of the most serious import why did he not raise it with me when the Dáil resumed last month? Why did he not demand a statement from either me or the Minister for Defence before now? Why are we debating the matter this week? Is it as a result of the traumas Deputy Kenny and his party endured last week?

We are discussing it because this is the Parliament.

Is the Leader of Fine Gael trying to divert attention from his crisis by foisting a drama on to somebody else?

What crisis?

Is he tabling motions of no confidence because he is afraid that if he does no another party will and that he will once again be seen as being behind the curve?

I will tell the Taoiseach one thing——

Fine Gael's posturing about a motion of no confidence is completely spurious and is merely a diversion.

This is a hangar six shot.

It is a hangover from the hangar.

That party's intent to seek the resignation of the Minister for Defence, Deputy O'Dea, is indicative of a growing tendency within the Opposition that focuses on personality rather than on politics. It is sad that once again their approach amounts to playing the man rather than the ball. Rather than be out-done in the sham indignation stakes by Deputy Gilmore, Deputy Kenny has chosen to join him in taking the old discredited Labour approach of seeking "heads in baskets".

The Opposition's eagerness for a motion of no confidence is premised not on the implementation or the administration of the programme for Government commitments on defence, but rather on Deputy Kenny's promise to his parliamentary party in the aftermath of the George Lee debacle that "what I'm going to do now is be myself".

The Taoiseach should deal with the issue.

The waste of valuable hours of Dáil debate on an unnecessary and unjustified motion of no confidence, at a time when there are real and pressing issues to be addressed, owes more to Deputy Kenny's need to prove to his members that he is, in the words of Deputy Coveney, "up to the job" than it does to any real concern or reservation regarding the running and administration of the Department of Defence.

This is about one of the Taoiseach's Ministers, not about one of my party's members.

I wish to say unequivocally that I am happy to affirm complete confidence in the Minister for Defence, Deputy O'Dea. I have the utmost confidence in his abilities and in his capacity to do his job. On my election as Taoiseach it was my privilege to reappoint him as Minister for Defence. Deputy O'Dea has served in that role with distinction and his track-record is second to none. While achievement and ability to do the job obviously count for little to some, I believe the people of this country are fairer minded. They recognise achievement and they know that people sometimes make mistakes. Everyone is in favour of accountability in public office but when people make a genuine mistake which has nothing to do with their official duties and where they have moved to quickly correct that mistake——

Who decided that he made a genuine mistake?

——and have settled the matter with the aggrieved party, I do not see why I should listen to the usual, predictable calls from the Opposition to remove from office arguably the best, the most efficient and the hardest-working Minister for Defence to serve the country in recent times.

Members of the Opposition are more interested in innuendo and stirring up controversy than in people's political records.

What about the facts?

I would like to spend some time balancing those books and pointing out that I have the utmost confidence in Deputy O'Dea, who has shown real skills in overseeing the continued modernisation of the Defence Forces and bringing about significant progress across a broad range of areas.

He is the artful dodger.

The McCarthy report acknowledged the ongoing modernisation in defence and this is the vein in which I want to see the Minister continue during the period ahead. It is worth pointing out some of the many achievements of Deputy O'Dea as Minister for Defence. He has placed great priority on acquiring equipment and rationalising military barracks. The investment he has overseen has led to an improvement in Defence Forces equipment and resulted in the high level of morale among their members.

The Taoiseach should appoint him as Tánaiste.

I wish to share time with the Ministers for Finance and Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputies Brian Lenihan and Ryan. I make the point that whether it is in respect of overseas peace support, the development of the medical corps or the involvement of Defence Forces personnel in cash escorts, the Minister has always acted competently.

In highlighting the Minister's achievements and his ongoing programme of work, it is worth considering that in the past two years Fine Gael's spokesman on defence has put forward only three suggestions which differ from those of the Government in respect of defence policy. The number rises to four if one includes the idea put forward by Deputy Kenny in the run-up to the 2007 general election that we should establish Army-run boot camps.

Perhaps Deputy O'Dea could spend a little time in such a camp.

The Taoiseach is scoring heavily now.

Another Flannery idea.

The first of the three policy differences to which I refer relates to the triple lock. Unlike the other main political parties — Fianna Fáil, Labour, the Green Party — and the key independents, Fine Gael is committed to abandoning the letter and the spirit of the triple lock of Government, Dáil and UN approval before Irish troops serve overseas. The idea most consistently pursued by Fine Gael is to have the Army drill and fitness instructors deployed in schools to teach PE. That party has also suggested that we replicate the New Zealand model of defence forces administration——

This speech was not written by the Taoiseach.

——which would require us to more than double the number of people working in defence administration from just over 600 to over 1,400.

Did the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, write the Taoiseach's speech?

It is clear that Fine Gael has little to contribute to discourse on defence policy.

Where are the Green Party members of Government?

Fine Gael's approach is to try to drag down the Minister and inflict whatever damage it can on the Government to disguise from its lack of ideas and policy.

Did Deputy Gormley write that speech?

Send for the Green Party.

This Government is not going to bow to those cheap tactics. We have full confidence in the Minister for Defence and we look forward to him continuing to serve the Government and the people.

This matter was raised in the Upper House on Tuesday, 2 February last, and has been in the public domain since then. It was raised by a Senator affiliated to the main Opposition party on the occasion to which I refer. It is now Wednesday, 17 February. Therefore, the enormous sound and fury we have heard from the Fine Gael benches in recent days did not begin on 2 February when the matter was first raised. It was not considered a matter of moment, although it was raised by a member of the Fine Gael parliamentary party on Tuesday, 2 February.

What is the Minister's point?

Yes, what is his point?

In the past few days, however, it has suddenly become a matter of immense moment.

This is the case because of the discomfiture of the Opposition at the departure of former Deputy George Lee. That is why the matter is of immense moment now.

I thought the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, was a statesman.

It was of no moment on 2 February and was fit to be left floating on the Seanad's Order of Business on that day. In recent days, however, it has been raised.

The Minister for Defence raised it himself on Sunday last.

Given that it has been raised, let us deal with the issues involved. There are two crucial issues that arise. The first of these, as has been already outlined by the Taoiseach, is that this entire dispute came to light in the course of a civil proceeding between two individuals before the courts.

One of whom is a Minister.

Correct. However, being a Minister gives him no special position as a litigant in a courthouse.

He just makes the law.

He does not change the law in the course of an action. The law that applied to him in that action also applied to the other party to it.

The Government whip is going——

This was a civil matter which went before the courts and which was brought to a conclusion. Such matters are brought to a conclusion on the basis of both a settlement and the differences of the parties being reconciled.

What did it cost?

The Minister should keep talking.

The other party to the action did not in any way refer to this earlier affidavit or suggest that he was compromised in respect of that affidavit.

He got the lump sum.

The matter was settled to the satisfaction of the two parties involved. That is their conclusion. As far as the public interest is concerned——

It did not happen.

The public interest in this matter — with one exception with which I will deal in a moment — ended when the case was settled.

No, it did not.

The exception to which I refer is the position Deputy O'Dea holds as a Minister and whether his conduct in court in some way undermined that.

Deputy O'Dea swore an oath.

I must make the point that this was a civil action in which no public interest, other than and with the exception of that one matter, remained outstanding when the matter was brought to a conclusion.

What was the nature of the settlement?

Questions have been raised, not in this House but elsewhere, that the earlier hearing before the High Court on the application for the injunction was in some way compromised or prejudiced by the existence of this statement in the affidavit. In fact, this had no bearing on the matter. Due to the fact that the Minister, Deputy O'Dea, disavowed the allegation, there was no need to give an injunction.

The Minister should remember that he is in the Dáil.

The order was made and the other party was never prejudiced because the Minister — everyone must accept this — never repeated the allegation.

Where are the Greens?

There is no sign of them.

Let us deal with the principal question that has been raised in an ugly and unpleasant way in recent days. The word "perjury" was used in the Upper House and it has been used very freely in the newspapers. The fact is that perjury occurs only when an intentional misleading occurs.

Everyone in this House is aware of that. However, the word "perjury" has been insinuated into the debate and people have nodded and winked in its direction. That has been the approach of Opposition speakers at a time when this country faces far more serious difficulties.

It is an abuse of public life to have this type of debate even in progress. Deputy Kenny leads the Fine Gael Party; I challenge him to produce any evidence he has that the Minister, Deputy O'Dea, intentionally misled anybody.

The tape is the evidence.

There is no such evidence.

Who is the judge on that?

That is unbelievable

We heard his explanation yesterday evening. It is an explanation in which he plainly advanced all the reasons he made an honest mistake.

Why did he pay money?

Either he made an honest mistake or——

——he intentionally misled but there is no evidence that he intentionally misled——

What about the tape?

——and to date in this debate the Opposition has not produced a shred of evidence that he intentionally misled anyone on this court proceeding. The Opposition does not have any evidence of this but it constantly insinuates that in some sense he is guilty of an offence which he never committed.

Why did he pay compensation so?

Deputy Kenny cannot act, and this morning his spokesperson suggested that the Director of Public Prosecutions might have some role in this matter but there is no evidence being given to the Director of Public Prosecutions on this matter. What we have in this whole political saga is an attempt by Fine Gael to operate as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner. We are not having it.

Hear, hear.

Fianna Fáil is worried about the Sunday newspapers.

I am speaking on behalf of the Green Party to set out how we see the issue. The Minister for Defence, Deputy O'Dea, has spoken to our party and set out his version of events——

Is the Green Party happy with it?

——and we followed, with everyone else——

Which version?

——the various events as reported.

Is that why Senator de Búrca left?

It can be only on the basis of what one sees there that one makes a judgment and assessment.

The facts are clear. They have been gone through and I am sure they will be gone through further. Those facts are the original interview in the Limerick Chronicle following allegations of improper use of civil servants for political work; the allegations during the course of the interview regarding the use of the property by the people in question; the fact that the journalist then contacted those people——

The Minister has lost his confidence.

——and asked for comment and they threatened legal action against the newspaper which led to publication of a clarification by the newspaper; and the seeking of a High Court injunction against the Minister, Deputy Willie O'Dea, seeking that he would stop spreading allegations, as I see it——

Which side is the Minister on?

In April last year the High Court refused an injunction on the basis of a strong denial by the Minister, Deputy O'Dea, that he was spreading allegations; and in June 2009 the person in question was elected to Limerick City Council and pursued a defamation action against the Minister, Deputy O'Dea, who filed an affidavit repeating his denial.

A lapse.

This led to the discovery of a tape of the interview which showed that the Minister had made such allegations. The crucial matter, as I understand it——

The Minister's understanding is not great.

——is that at that point the Minister acknowledged that he had mistakenly stated he had not made the allegations——

When he got caught.

Why would he do that?

——and that he had relied in making such an affidavit on the published interview and in December 2009——

Get your gun now, Willie.

Allow the Minister to continue without interruption.

——a High Court judge ruled that the case was settled with damages and costs paid by Deputy O'Dea to the person in question. The Minister, Deputy O'Dea, also withdrew and apologised for the wrongful allegations——

Do you think that is all right?

——which apology, as I understand, was accepted by the other party——

It is not about the other party.

——who also accepted that the earlier affidavit had been a mistake——

Fianna Fáil is laughing at you.

——and was not an attempt to mislead. That is the crucial issue; when there was a mistake in the affidavit and something that was not true, it was acknowledged in court, dealt with in court, accepted by the other party and reported in the media as such. It was quite some time ago and I do not have the exact details.

What would you say if you were in Opposition?

As I see it that is the case——

Sit down.

——and the circumstances have been set out and I do not hear any disagreement.

You are uncomfortable and squirming.

They are bringing you down to their level.

In those circumstances, our job in Government is to get on with the crucial issues that face this country and to start providing the jobs that were mentioned earlier on. That is the crucial task that we have in Government.

I am happy that is what we should be concentrating on, confident that the Government can and will deliver on those jobs having delivered on the change to our budget and banking system, which will also help provide an economic turnaround.

What a day for the Green Party.

The Green Party will save one job anyway — Willie's.

That is what the public is looking for us to do. That is what we intend to do in Government and will continue to do for the betterment of the country.

More soldiers so.

No credibility. Is that how one can get out of perjury, by stating that one made a mistake?

I will share time with Deputies Michael D'Arcy and Brian Hayes.

This is not an untypical response from the Fianna Fáil Party. This is not about the Minister, Deputy Willie O'Dea; it is about the standards employed by the Taoiseach and the Government.

Your standards.

The Taoiseach's predecessor eloquently stated from the seat in which the Taoiseach is sitting that Fianna Fáil's ethics are to get in here and stay in here at all costs. Those are the ethics of the party the Taoiseach leads.

Nothing changes.

The good people of Limerick have elected that Deputy for many years, as is their absolute right. However, he is not sitting over there just as a Deputy; he is sitting there as an appointed Cabinet Minister, an officer of the court and a constitutional seal of office holder. As such, standards in that office must be of the highest integrity at a time when politics is in a deep depression of cynicism because of carry-on over the years. This is not just about the Minister, Deputy O'Dea; it is about standards at ministerial level, the highest level of political office in the land which the Taoiseach oversees. The response I heard from him and the former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform aided by the present Minister in defending this makes the matter even worse.

The reason for this debate is that a Minister in the Taoiseach's Government, who also happens to be a trained barrister, swore a false affidavit before the High Court and corrected it only when he was caught out on a tape.

Hear, hear.

That is not true.

It is true.

Deputy Kenny, without interruption.

It is not a case of a simple mistake.

What about standards?

Stick to the facts.

The last time the Minister, Deputy O'Deam was caught out on a tape was when he defended his position and his party's position to the taxi men of Limerick——

Remember that, Willie?

——only to understand when it was played back to him that what he said when he came out was different from what he said inside.

The facts are these and the Minister from the Green Party should bear them in mind because I will quote him some of his words in a few minutes. The Minister, Deputy O'Dea, told an untruth about another person. It was not a political charge but an accusation that someone was involved in serious criminal activity, namely, operating a brothel. When he was challenged on that false claim, he swore a further untruth, that he had never made the original accusation. Because of that dishonest affidavit, a court refused to grant an order that would have corrected the original claim of criminal activity. In other words, the second highest court in the land made a decision based on the sworn testimony of a Cabinet Minister which was false. It was only when he was presented with irrefutable proof of his own voice and his own deceit that he corrected this false affidavit and made a settlement payment to the person he had wrongly accused.

Untrue.

Clear cut.

First he stated this was a mistake. If the Minister is so used to making allegations like this that he cannot remember one specific instance then the Cabinet and the Government really have a bigger problem. If the Minister, Deputy O'Dea believed what he told that journalist then he should have gone to the Garda Síochána and reported it in the first instance.

They reported it to me.

The notion that any normal human being can say to a journalist "That man runs a brothel" and then forget that he said it when part of it was in print in the newspaper the following day just beggars belief.

He is blaming the Garda now.

It was never in print.

The second defence put forward was that both the slander and the false affidavit to the High Court were perpetrated by Willie O'Dea, private citizen, not Willie O'Dea, Minister.

Invisible hairs are being split here. A belief in the capacity to separate private impropriety from public office now appears to be standard operating procedure for Fianna Fáil in Government. We heard precisely the same logic from the Taoiseach's predecessor when he stated in regard to his Manchester whip-round that despite the fact that he was Minister for Finance at the time, he was Bertie Ahern, private citizen, when he was handed £15,000 in a brown envelope.

The Taoiseach's defence of his Minister comes straight from Fianna Fáil's code of operations. He claimed the Minister broke no code of ministerial ethics. The reason he broke no code is because some things are so obviously unethical that it would be laughable to include them in the code in the first place. For example, one would think the sentence: "Do not lie to the High Court" is redundant to a code of ministerial conduct.

The Taoiseach failed to answer specific questions regarding the steps he took in the two months since the issue was brought to his attention. His colleague is involved in a matter of importance. Equally, we have no indication that another Minister attempted to seek an explanation for these events. This is about the Minister as distinct from the Deputy. It appears that it was not an issue for anyone in this Government until it became the subject of an editorial in a national newspaper yesterday. That the Taoiseach and the Minister for Defence define their ethics by the specific warnings of a code of conduct rather than by a moral compass points to a lack of morality which is endemic to their party and which smears the good name of every Member of this House by association.

The vote before us is simple. If Deputies believe it is wrong for a Minister to tell an untruth in a sworn affidavit in the High Court, they can have no confidence in the Minister for Defence. If they believe it is appropriate for a Minister to swear a false and defamatory affidavit in the High Court, they can vote their support for him and, by doing so, define publicly their own political morality. These are the questions that must be answered by Fianna Fáil and Green Party Members when they vote on this issue.

The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government gave the following address on 24 February 2007:

It's great to be back in Galway. I came down on the overcrowded train. . .there's a strange cult called Fianna Fáil, a type of religion without vision or values; and every year in August they go on their annual pilgrimage to one of their sacred sites, the tent at the Galway races, where they pay homage to their gods and the gods bestow them with gifts for doing their bidding. . .The Green Party wants high standards in high places. . .

It is not getting them.

He continued:

. . .not because we are particularly virtuous, but because strong ethical standards improve the quality of our democracy. We do it because we recognise that there are now three Governments in this country — the permanent Government, which is the civil service; the present Government, if you can call it that, consisting of the PDs and Fianna Fáil; and the real Government which are the gods in the Ballybrit tent...We will introduce the strictest ethical standards ever seen in this country.

Three years on, the Green Party now has the chance to live up to these words.

On 12 November 1996, speaking on a motion of no confidence in the then Minister for Justice, Deputy O'Dea, stated:

If accountability means anything, blame must sometimes be taken and consequences sometimes ensue in the absence of knowledge and, therefore, in the absence of culpability in that sense. If that were not the position nobody would ever have to resign because, however great the disaster, it could never be proved as a definitive fact that a Minister had actual as opposed to constructive knowledge.

Here speaks a trained barrister and a supremely confident and energetic politician who knows the law of the land. He now serves not only as a back bench Deputy but also as one of the highest officers of the State in his position of Minister for Defence. How can anyone stand over this situation?

Deputy Kenny has not produced a shred of evidence.

The former and current Ministers for Justice, Equality and Law Reform are defending this state of affairs around the Cabinet table.

With pride.

It would not happen in any other Parliament.

It is ironic——

Unlike Fine Gael Members we do not assassinate people, such as poor old George last week.

You have a lifetime's experience of it.

The last time an issue involving a tape was raised was in the case of the good father of the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan.

George Lee was used for a couple of months and then he was thrown away.

Allow Deputy Kenny to continue.

I put it to the House that the Minister, Deputy O'Dea——

The greatest character assassination was carried out by his colleagues after George left last Monday.

The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform is supposed to stand over high standards.

It was a character assassination and now he is at it again.

It is not simply about the Minister, Deputy O'Dea. This is an act of criminality against the laws of the State which the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform is supposed to uphold and the Taoiseach is supposed to implement.

Nonsense.

As I said the other day, he is returning to type.

For what it is worth——

Guttersnipe politics.

Where is gorgeous George?

Members, please——

You got rid of him just because he did not suit your purposes.

You have no class.

You threw him to the wolves.

Deputy Dermot Ahern, please allow Deputy Kenny to continue without interruption.

Deirdre de Búrca was right.

Neither the Minister for Defence nor any other Minister would have lasted five minutes in a Government of which I was a member.

Or any other Government.

What about the money in the off-shore accounts? What a hypocrite you are.

Gather the wagons around the Minister for Defence. Fianna Fáil's ethics are get in here and stay in here, regardless of whether one makes a false affidavit and corrects it when found out by tape.

That is why Deputy Kenny took it out on George.

It makes no difference whether one is a Minister so long as the "FF, we rule" imprint is on one's heart. The law it makes, the law it breaks. The Minister, Deputy O'Dea, broke it as a Deputy and as Minister. He said it was an honest mistake but the person opposite me cannot be divided into Deputy, citizen and Minister. He is the Holy Trinity in one.

He knows he is wrong——

Deputy Kenny departed from his script.

——and all the other Ministers recognise that too.

For God's sake, sit down.

Three in one.

Be yourself for a change.

A serious and fundamental issue of standards has arisen but Ministers will not oversee or implement these standards. When the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, casts his vote this evening, he should remember his standards and the words of his absent leader.

Hear, hear.

Iris Robinson was fired for less.

Between yesterday's statement by the Minister for Defence and today's statements by the Taoiseach, an important intervention was made. The Official Report will show that the Minister, Deputy Willie O'Dea, intervened while the leader of my party, Deputy Enda Kenny, was speaking. He indicated in the course of the debate that the Garda informed him about the alleged incident and the owners of the property concerned. The Official Report will show that. If he obtained this information from the Garda, the question that inevitably follows is why exactly he settled. Why did he not put it in his statement or affidavit? Why did he not inform the House of that fact yesterday?

He forgot that too.

Did the Minister forget that as well?

The information was wrong.

Is he now denying that in an intervention to the leader of my party, Deputy Kenny, he suggested that the information came from the Garda Síochána? Is that a fact?

Indeed it is.

Why exactly did he not put that in his affidavit?

It turned out to be wrong.

Blame everybody else but yourselves.

Deputy Brian Hayes, without interruption.

Now it is the fault of the Garda Síochána. This is some turn-up for the books. If ever we had a political Pinocchio, it has to be the Minister. This is getting worse by the minute. It means that he misled the House yesterday. He did not put that information on the record yesterday. Why not? Why did he blurt it out today to save his political backside when he is up against the pressure of this debate?

Recollection deficit.

That is his problem.

We will soon have an opportunity to test the Deputy's recollection.

I wish to raise one other issue. The Minister made the original allegation on 10 March. On 14 April he signed a sworn affidavit to the courts. As a barrister, he is an officer of the court. He is a senior Cabinet Minister. That was four weeks later. It was not four months, years or decades. It was four weeks after he made the very serious allegations against the gentleman concerned. Why did he not check it out? Why did he not go back to check his sources? Why did he not go to all of the third parties concerned? All of this smells of Fianna Fáil circling the wagons.

I have a question for one member of the Government who is not present — I do not mind the Greens, they are hugely irrelevant in all of this anyway.

They are gone anyway.

Where is Deputy Mary Harney, the person who built her career on trying to smoke out low standards in the Fianna Fáil Party?

She is fully, 100% behind the Minister, Deputy O'Dea.

Good man Noel.

Does she support the concoction the Minister, Deputy O'Dea, gave to the House yesterday, of which the House has been given another version today? Sir, I put it to you that the House has no confidence in the Minister, Deputy O'Dea.

Deputy Hayes is clutching at straws.

As Deputy Kenny said, this is a pattern of behaviour——

A culture.

——over many years. He has been found out for the fraud that he is.

Hear, hear.

I compliment the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan. It is always a pleasure to watch a skilful lawyer defending the indefensible. The Minister, Deputy Ryan, dropped the ball. Not only that, he knocked it on. Every person in the Chamber can see his body language and that he does not believe one word from the Minister, Deputy O'Dea.

The Deputy should look back on what I said and show me any inaccuracies. I will listen with interest.

Let him speak for himself.

The Minister had his moment. The Greens spoke about principles. Marx spoke about principles also — Groucho Marx. He said not to worry about those ones, we have others. The Green Party has none.

We are trying to get this country out of its economic difficulties. We will continue to do that.

The Minister should be quiet.

The Chair should protect the speaker.

The Deputies opposite interrupted all the time.

We are here today as a result of the actions of the Minister, Deputy O'Dea, not Fine Gael. His actions against Councillor Maurice Quinlivan were slanderous. The Minister paid up because he was wrong. The Minister, Deputy O'Dea, got down in the political trench, picked up a ball of political mud and threw it at someone he considered to be an adversary. What has happened since then? Nothing more or less than a good old Irish-style cover up. Every person opposite will vote on the motion. They are voting for the continuation of the same old-style Irish politics that has been tarnished by Fianna Fáil for the past 25 years.

The Taoiseach said he would re-establish the primacy of this Chamber. They were his words. What we are seeing today is more of the same from the Bertie Ahern era that tarnished politics and every good Member of this House who works hard and does his or her best for the citizens of the State.

Let us remember another Minister in that position, namely, Ray Burke. We remember him drawing the line in the political sand and how he said no one should cross that line, and that he was telling the truth. He did not tell the truth. He lied, and so did the Minister, Deputy O'Dea. Shame on him. He has tarnished the Parliament, as always.

I wish to share my time with Deputy Joan Burton.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

The Labour Party will support the motion of no confidence in the Minister for Defence, Deputy O'Dea. We will oppose the motion that has been proposed by the Taoiseach.

The Labour Party has no confidence in the Government as a collective entity or in the Ministers in their individual capacities. This is the Fianna Fáil Government that has brought this country to the brink of economic ruin.

Here we go.

This is a Government that has allowed unemployment to climb to unprecedented levels and permitted emigration to return to levels not seen since the 1980s. This is a Government that has presided over massive job losses at Dell, in the constituency of the Minister, Deputy O'Dea, at Waterford Crystal and in many other plants without taking any meaningful action to try and save those jobs. This is a Government that failed to take the required action to save jobs at SR Technics and which has subsequently made such an absolute and utter mess of the offer by Ryanair to provide up to 500 highly skilled jobs at Dublin Airport.

This is a Fianna Fáil Government that remains totally indifferent in the face of a forecast from FÁS that the numbers out of work will increase by 87,000 in the coming year and a warning from the Irish Bank Officials' Association that as many as 10,000 jobs could be lost in the banking sector.

Deputy Gilmore is worrying about the banking sector very late in the day.

It did nothing to even try to save the jobs in Bank of Scotland-Ireland. This is a Fianna Fáil Government that has placed a financial millstone around the necks of not just the current generation of taxpayers, but of Irish taxpayers for generations to come. This is a Government that wrote a blank cheque for the banks when it agreed in as yet unexplained circumstances on the night of 30 September 2009 to provide a guarantee for the banks, exposing the taxpayer to a potential liability of €440 billion.

This is the Government that manoeuvred to avoid a full parliamentary inquiry into the banking crisis, and instead forced through a private, behind closed doors limited inquiry that specifically excludes the events of 30 September 2009 from its limited terms of reference. This is the Fianna Fáil Government that in every year of its record since 1997 has placed the interests of bankers and developers above those of the ordinary taxpayer. This is the Government that has handed over €4 billion to Anglo Irish Bank and another €7 billion to AIB and Bank of Ireland. This is the Government, led by a Taoiseach who has indicated he is prepared to write any cheque, no matter what the cost, to rescue the bankers.

This is a Fianna Fáil Government whose determination to leave no stone unturned to bail out the developers is in stark contrast to its indifference to the tens of thousands of families who are living in fear of losing their homes because the breadwinner has lost his or her job. This is the Fianna Fáil government that has failed to provide people with the decent health service they deserve. Only last week the Comptroller and Auditor General reported that there had been a major increase in the number of people waiting more than 12 hours in accident and emergency units for admission in the first five months of 2009 when compared to the same period in 2008.

This is the Fianna Fáil Government that has taken the unprecedented step of cutting the welfare payments of the blind, widows and those with disabilities. This is the Government that has cut the pay of poorly paid public servants on two occasions in the past year. Faced with the choice of taking some extra tax from super-high earners, or hitting those on welfare or low pay, there is never any real issue for this Fianna Fáil Government.

Let us make no mistake about it; this is a Fianna Fáil Government and it is a misnomer to refer to it as anything else. It is not a coalition government in any accepted sense of the term. We know from the revealing statements made by former Senator De Búrca that Fianna Fáil has little regard for the Green Party, that it can casually renege on agreements made and is quite prepared, in the phrase attributed to the Minister, Deputy Gormley, to shaft the Greens whenever necessary.

This is a deadbeat Government led by a Taoiseach who failed to live up to even the low expectations of his opponents and which is made up of Ministers who are demoralised, disenchanted and disillusioned. They have nothing to offer people other than more years of bungling and incompetence. The best service they could now offer to the people is to submit themselves to the verdict of the electorate; allow for a change of government and direction; give others the opportunity to undo the damage they have caused; and clear the way for the process of recovery and reconstruction to begin.

We will have the old Stickies in. Never.

The Minister, Deputy O'Dea, as a member of the Cabinet must accept his share of the responsibility for the economic damage and social destruction that Fianna Fáil has wrought on the people. However, it is another matter, of enormous importance and significance that has led to the tabling of this motion of no confidence in the Minister.

Leaving aside the broader issues I referred to, there are two reasons I believe the House should now express no confidence in the Minister, Deputy O'Dea. The first is that he made an absolutely scurrilous and unfounded allegation about a political opponent in his constituency, an allegation that he was subsequently forced to admit was totally and utterly without foundation. The second is that he swore an affidavit that contained a blatant untruth. What was the allegation made by the Minister against Councillor Quinlivan? In his interview with the Limerick Chronicle Mr. O’Dea claimed that Councillor Quinlivan was involved in some way in the operation of a brothel in Limerick. “Do you know the brothel they found in his name and in his brother’s name down in Clancy Strand”, he asked the journalist conducting the interview. It is difficult to think of a more serious, more scurrilous and more potentially damaging allegation that could be made against a political opponent.

During an election.