Dáil business collapsed in a shambles yesterday afternoon after the Government spent 15 minutes searching Leinster House in vain for the minimum number of TDs required to keep the House in session.
The Government embarrassment was engineered by Labour's environment spokesman, Mr Eamon Gilmore, who said later he was seeking to highlight the "charade" of Friday Dáil sittings which the Government was "treating with contempt".
Mr Gilmore called for a quorum at 3.30 p.m. during a debate on the Protection of the Environment Bill.
Such a call results in business being suspended until a minimum of 20 of the 166 deputies come into the chamber.
However, despite the Taoiseach leaving his office in Government Buildings to come to the chamber in response to the quorum bell, the Government could only muster 11 deputies.
It appears none of the other Government TDs was in Leinster House, having either remained in their constituencies for the day or left the House early.
With the Opposition deputies remaining outside the chamber to maximise Government embarrassment, the Leas Ceann Comhairle, Mr Seamus Pattison, announced after more than 15 minutes that business was suspended until Tuesday.
It is believed to have been the first time a government has been unable to organise a quorum for over a decade.
Mr Gilmore said later that while the Dáil normally only sat from Tuesday to Thursday, the Government was organising Friday sittings "to take the bare look off the paucity of days the Dáil is being asked to sit".
"However, they won't allow us to have an order of business, they won't allow us to question Ministers, they won't allow us to have a vote and now they won't even bring their members to the Dáil.
"They are going through a charade giving the impression that business is being done on Fridays when they all go off to their constituencies."
However, the Government chief whip, Ms Mary Hanafin, who arrived in the chamber just after business was abandoned for the day, claimed the Opposition was being hypocritical.
"For months the Opposition has been screaming for extra time to debate legislation. We have given them that opportunity by sitting on Fridays.
"They can't object to not having time for legislation and then behave like this," she said.
Fine Gael's party whip, Mr Bernard Durkan, said it was not good enough for a debate to be attended only by Opposition deputies while the Government TDs occupied themselves elsewhere.
The collapse of business "proves for the second time this week that this Government is indifferent to parliamentary business.
"Coming quickly on the heels of Minister McDowell's inexcusable absence from the Dáil on Tuesday night, we now have the debate on the Protection of the Environment Bill being abandoned because of the failure of the Government to get adequate numbers into the Dáil."
The Socialist Party leader, Mr Joe Higgins, said that, while Dáil standing orders said the quorum bell should be rung for a three-minute period, it had been rung for 15 minutes yesterday and still there were not enough deputies present. Friday sittings were a pretence that the Government was allowing real debate.