THE DÁIL resumes today for its final session before the general election with Taoiseach Brian Cowen coming under renewed pressure from the Opposition to explain his contacts with former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Seán FitzPatrick.
Mr Cowen is expected to dissolve the Dáil in late February once the Finance Bill has been passed, with the likely date for the general election being March 25th.
The Cabinet was expected to finalise the date of the election and agree the remainder of its legislative programme at a meeting yesterday afternoon but decisions were postponed until another Cabinet meeting this morning.
The meeting will decide what other pieces of priority legislation will be put through the Dáil, along with the Finance Bill, before the election is called.
Ministers favour a four-week election campaign in order to put pressure on the Opposition parties to explain their policies, but the campaign will effectively begin once the Cabinet has agreed on a date.
In the Dáil today, Mr Cowen will be asked by the Opposition to explain why he did not disclose full details of his contacts with Seán FitzPatrick when he was asked about the issue by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore in the Dáil in February 2009.
Green Party leader John Gormley was yesterday critical of Mr Cowen’s failure to reveal details of his contacts with Mr FitzPatrick but said his party would remain in Government.
“There is no question that when you have an incomplete record it does give rise to suspicion,” Mr Gormley said after a party meeting in Dublin. He added, however, that the Greens had not been able to find any evidence of inappropriate behaviour in the contacts between Mr Cowen and Mr FitzPatrick.
“We have tried the best we can to establish whether there was any impropriety,” said Mr Gormley, who insisted that there was only so much the party could do to try and establish the facts.
The Opposition yesterday continued to put pressure on both Coalition parties to respond to the disclosures about the contacts between Mr Cowen and Mr FitzPatrick.
Fine Gael justice spokesman Alan Shatter accused Mr Gormley of ignoring that it was improper for the Taoiseach not to tell the Garda about his conversation in March 2008 with Mr Fitzpatrick.
“John Gormley has admitted that the Taoiseach should have disclosed earlier his contacts with Seán FitzPatrick in 2008. I am now calling on John Gormley to clarify whether he regards the Taoiseach’s failure to co-operate with the Garda investigation into Anglo as improper and whether he has yet asked the Taoiseach to assist the Garda in its inquiries,” said Mr Shatter.
Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore also said yesterday the Garda should be involved. “I presume that the gardaí will question the Taoiseach about what Mr FitzPatrick said to him,” he said, while opening a campaign office in Portlaoise.
“What is quite clear, though, is that we need to know precisely what the Government knew at the time that they provided the blanket bailout for Anglo Irish Bank, because that was the decision in September of 2008 which tied the banks to the State, which has caused the huge economic problem that we have had,” he added.
Mr Gilmore said that John Gormley should stop holding press conferences and start insisting that the Taoiseach stick to the pre-Christmas election timetable.
“The election should take place before the end of February but it should be called before the end of January, that is the deadline that was set at the time. The Dáil is back tomorrow, it should take two to three weeks to deal with the Finance Bill, then call the general election,” he said.
The Sinn Féin leader in the Dáil, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, described the Green Party’s response to the revelations of contacts between Mr Cowen and Mr FitzPatrick as “pathetic”.