NO CONFIDENCE MOTION:LABOUR PARTY leader Eamon Gilmore has said his party intends to pursue its "no confidence" motion in the Government next Tuesday as the State needed "new leadership". The motion would be voted on the following night.
“We cannot allow to postpone for a day longer, for a minute longer, the changes that this country needs, and the fresh start that this country needs in order to get out of its difficulties,” Mr Gilmore said in Galway yesterday.
“The Labour Party tabled its motion of no confidence, because Labour has no confidence in this dysfunctional Government . . . Fianna Fáil and the Greens have no confidence in it either, and for it to continue on for a day longer than is necessary is bad for the country – we want to bring it to a head.”
Mr Gilmore accused Fianna Fáil of stalling on publication of the Finance Bill to delay holding an election. “Putting the Finance Bill through would have taken maybe two or three weeks,” Mr Gilmore said on Galway Bay FM Radio.
“I said in the Dáil before Christmas that the Labour Party was prepared to give them two or three weeks to get the Finance Bill through and then call the general election before the end of January as had been promised,” he said.
“Then when we came back after Christmas, it was quite clear the end of January suddenly became the end of March, and then they were talking about April, and it was quite clear that this was all a play for time,” he added. “The stroke that was attempted to be pulled [on Thursday] was to appoint new ministers and drag it out for as long as possible, and this was, incidentally, why the Labour Party put down a motion of no confidence in the Government because we want to put an end to this.” Mr Gilmore was undertaking a visit to Galway West and East constituencies.
Meanwhile Minister for the Environment John Gormley said his initial knowledge of Mr Cowen’s plans to replace Ministers came in a phone call from the Taoiseach last Sunday morning. He misunderstood this to refer to Ministers opposing Mr Cowen on the motion of confidence at the following Tuesday’s meeting of the parliamentary party.
He got back to Mr Cowen later to say that this proposal was not meeting with approval from the rest of the Green Party.
Along with party colleagues, Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan and Senator Dan Boyle, he had a meeting on Wednesday morning with the Taoiseach, outgoing minister for defence Tony Killeen and Government Chief Whip John Curran.
Mr Gormley said that, at this meeting, Mr Ryan in particular put it “very forcefully” to Mr Cowen that replacing ministers at this stage would be seen as a “stroke”.