Motion demands Ahern holds an early election

Labour and Fine Gael joined forces in a private members' motion in the Dáil last night to demand that the Taoiseach call a general election.

The motion, which is highly critical of the Government's performance on a variety of issues, will be voted on tonight.

Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said that the Government should not see another Christmas. "Whereas the kings of old brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, this Coalition will present the Irish people with their own gold, with incompetence and with myopia. The kindest thing that could happen would be for the turkeys to vote for Christmas, and the Government to call a general election."

Mr Rabbitte said that the Irish economy did not need another dose of spend and tax. Taxes were down and would stay down.

Labour, he said, would build more beds, ensure the hospitals were cleaned, keep care as local as they could, tackle waste, and keep health as a community service, not give away vital health service sites to private investors.

"We will tackle crime, by a radical overhaul of policing, to put gardaí who are committed to communities into communities and make them responsible to communities."

Mr Rabbitte referred to "the thread of arrogance and disconnection from the lives of real people that saw the €160 million lost to PPARS, a level of loss described by Minister Dempsey as being 'relatively very, very small'.

"To the people who get up at six in the morning to go to work and care for others, €160 million of their money is most certainly not small."

Mr Rabbitte said that the thread of PD ideology afflicted more than half the Cabinet and insisted on doing irreparable damage to the health service by making it investor-led rather than patient-led. "And the thread of myopic conservatism, that refuses to see the opportunities that our new wealth brings us but insists on muddling along with old ways and in old mindsets."

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny accused the Government of being utterly disconnected from what was actually worrying people day to day as they reared their children, ran their businesses, cared for their mother or father, went to work, commuted for the equivalent of a day a week, paid the mortgage, paid the bills and paid their taxes.

"You see, people have every confidence in the economy. And they should have. It is their economy. They are the ones who built it up. And Pat Rabbitte and I are making perfectly clear to them that we will keep that economic success right on track. This is nothing new. We have done it before. And we will do it again."

Mr Kenny said that no government in the world could create wealth. "Instead, what governments can do - what governments should do - is to create the best possible conditions to allow business to thrive, to create wealth and to sustain wealth. And that is exactly what our new government will do."

Mr Kenny claimed that the Government's ignorance of what was really going on in the lives of people was "encyclopaedic". Charles Haughey, he added, had its measure, describing it as "the worst government in the history of the State. They have no plan. Nothing works".

Ireland, said Mr Kenny, was no longer being governed by a two-party coalition. "It is being run by a federation of factions. The Medici had nothing on you. This is a deluded, damaged, dysfunctional Government, out of touch, out of order, and now out of time."

He added that last week the Taoiseach "might have administered his soothing salve to the not-so-sweet 16, smiling, but shifting, on the backbenches behind him". But he could assure Mr Ahern "that between the heat of the doorsteps, and the humidity in here, the fissures continue to fester".