When everyone else was getting a bank holiday the Dáil was getting a "bank holi-week", the Green Party leader, Mr Trevor Sargent, remarked about the adjournment of the House for 12 days during Hallowe'en.
The North Dublin TD said the Oireachtas was "not in tune with the real world" and it was "not good enough for the House to take a break and put the country on automatic pilot, without the Government being accountable to the people through the Parliament".
In the row about the recess, four weeks after the Dáil returned from the summer break, the Opposition called for the House to sit next week, but the adjournment was agreed by 55 votes to 47.
The Tánaiste, Ms Harney, stressed that Oireachtas committees would meet next week and "the Government will meet regularly. There is no question of people going off on holidays."
She pointed out that the Minister for Education had "standardised the school year. All schools will be off next week. There are some deputies who are looking forward to spending some time with their children next week."
Fine Gael's deputy leader, Mr Richard Bruton, said Ministers were insisting that benchmarking would have to deliver reform in the Dáil as everywhere else. But there could be no real reform if, "at the first drop of the hat, we are going into a week's recess". He claimed "nobody among the wider public will understand this. It is damaging to the credibility of politics and should be abandoned." The Labour leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, said the impression would be created that TDs "are in their constituencies or in Spain", regardless of whether Dáil and Seanad committees were sitting or not. The last place the Government chose to make an announcement about any major policy was the Dáil, and it damaged the "standing of Parliament, standards in politics and our democracy".
He added that "the only objective of the Cabinet, including the Tánaiste, is to spend as little time as is feasible making itself amenable to this House".
Sinn Féin's Mr Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin asked if legislation would be "rushed through in advance of the Christmas recess", with "guillotine after guillotine and inadequate debate after inadequate debate".
The Tánaiste said that for a "whole host of reasons" she could not accept the Opposition request for the Dáil to remain in session next week. She pointed out that the Green Party and Fine Gael leaders had indicated they wanted to visit the North next week, and "if the Dáil was to meet we would not facilitate that visit".
