O'Donoghue `appalled and outraged' by sleaze claim

The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, hit back at the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, over his comments about the Government.

He called on Mr Bruton to "give over the fascism" and produce "policy documents" if he was to convince the public he was fit for government.

Mr O'Donoghue said he was "appalled and outraged" at Mr Bruton's allegation that it was a "Government full of sleaze". This came at a time when there were no allegations against any member of the Government in relation to corruption.

It was extraordinary given Mr Bruton's comments at the beef tribunal about the donations received at times of elections and about donations from Mr Ben Dunne.

The Minister said Fine Gael had operated on the basis of "misrepresentation, innuendo, rumour and smear". That "kind of smear tactic is not going to work". Fine Gael had "overreached itself" in its anxiety to "demonstrate to the public its preparedness for government".

If this was the best he could offer as an alternative to "the most successful Government in the history of the State" then their "tenancy" on the Opposition benches would be a long one.

Mr O'Donoghue was one of a number of Ministers and backbenchers who defended the Government against the Fine Gael motion condemning its performance on a number of issues. He outlined his role and said the fall in crime was "the result of a number of initiatives and innovative legislation which I introduced to tackle crime".

The only Progressive Democrat speaker in the debate, the Minister of State for Environment, confined his speech to housing. Mr Bobby Molloy said that never before had the State investment in water, sewage roads and other services required for building land for development been increased so substantially as it had by this Government.

They were building houses at the highest rate in Europe for the size of the population and this was five times the UK level.

His colleague, the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, concentrated on public transport and said the Government had been more active than any other in providing investment for public transport and in developing policies and strategies to "clearly chart the way forward".

The Government had taken far-sighted decisions for a renewed public transport system and she challenged Fine Gael to "point to a similar record during its period in office".

Mr Martin Brady (FF, Dublin North East) described the Opposition motion as "frivolous and vexatious". Concentrating on health issues, he said there was a "spin" being put by the Opposition that the Government was not spending on health.

This was completely untrue and it was "a bit contemptible" of the Opposition to use scare tactics on health issues "in a vain attempt to secure short-term electoral advantage". Mr Conor Lenihan (FF, Dublin South West) claimed the Opposition was "trying to introduce an air of crisis in our national affairs" which "no longer exists". He welcomed the new Independent TD Mr Seamus Healy to the Dail as a "real republican socialist".

He said they had got "rather tired of the weak, slightly-pinkish-in-colour opposition that's offered by Labour". He said they had been "longing for real opposition" for the past three years.

Most of the Government's mistakes had been "somewhat self-inflicted". They had not been inflicted by "the gentlemen opposite" who had "languished in the opinion polls". He said the Government "will continue to 2002, more assured and more determined to focus people on the real issues".