CONFIDENCE DEBATE:THE TAOISEACH rejected Opposition calls for a general election and insisted that he had a mandate to lead the Government.

Brian Cowen said: “This House will have an opportunity this week to decide whether the majority has confidence in this Government or not and that will be the democratic decision of this assembly. This is the means, under the Constitution, by which we hold or do not hold elections.

“When we complete our mandate, which we received in 2007 and which we intend to complete in 2012, we will, of course, go to the people on the issue of the day then, which will be whether to elect this Government or any other.

“What was decided upon last Friday was the election of people to the local authorities and to the European Parliament.”

Mr Cowen said that he had received his mandate as Taoiseach from the Dáil 12 months ago. “It is a great privilege to have it.

“I will use it, with the authority of that office and with whom I am in government, to continue with policies which we believe are, and which are becoming accepted across Europe as being, the policies necessary for this country.”

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny accused the Taoiseach of ignoring the voice of the people by continuing on the disastrous path he had chosen. “I put it to the Taoiseach that if he has any respect for the Irish people, whom he leads politically, he will accept that following Friday’s disaster for his Government, including his Green Party colleagues, he has no mandate or authority to continue in government and that he and his colleagues are deluding themselves if they believe they are losing support because they have faced tough decisions.

“Across Europe, governments which have faced tough decisions, and made decisions in the interests of their respective populations from a fairness and equality point of view . . . those of Germany, France, Italy and Poland . . . have done well.

“The truth is that the Government has lost the confidence of the people, not because it faced tough decisions but because it made the wrong choices.”

Mr Cowen said he had the same mandate as the taoiseach (John Bruton) under which Mr Kenny had served and it was the same quality as any other taoiseach who had the privilege to serve the country.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said people had given the most emphatic rejection last Friday of a sitting government. “Since then, we have had a succession of Ministers, and, today, the Taoiseach telling us the verdict of the people does not matter and that the Government intends to limp on, run to the bunker and hope to recover for another day.”

For the Government to continue in office was to defy the will of the people, said Mr Gilmore. He urged Mr Cowen to “do the decent, honourable and democratic thing” and go to Áras an Uachtaráin and seek a dissolution of the Dáil.

Mr Cowen said that if Mr Gilmore’s premise was logical, there would have been general elections after the local elections in 1985 and 1991. In every local election, except probably in 1967, the government of the day did not win and its parties returned with less representation in local authorities.