Tánaiste Mary Harney told the Dáil that she had full confidence in the Government chief whip, Tom Kitt.
As Socialist TD Joe Higgins (Dublin West) criticised the "latest pandemic of donations amnesia to afflict her Fianna Fáil partners in government", Ms Harney told him that the Oireachtas "has established a tribunal of inquiry into certain matters and it is a matter for that tribunal to reach judgment and decision".
"I have complete confidence in the Government chief whip," she said.
Mr Higgins said that of course she would, "because she herself accepted political donations from speculators". Rejecting his comments, Ms Harney said that like many members in the House and other houses in the democratic world, "people engage in honest fund-raising to support political activity".
When Mr Higgins said that taking money from speculators was not honest fund-raising, Ms Harney replied that "the taxpayers should not have to pay all the bills for political campaigns".
Mr Higgins asked: "Is it convincing that the chief whip of her Government could forget to tell the planning tribunal about a £2,000 donation from a wealthy landowner?"
He pointed out that the Tánaiste "said last week she discussed suspicions of corruption in Dublin County Council in the 1990s with Deputy Kitt and others". Mr Higgins said "the chief whip accepts a donation, other Fianna Fáil TDs accept donations, but then their memory fails".
When the Progressive Democrats were previously in government, "the unreliable memory of a government colleague, the late minister Brian Lenihan, caused her to have him sacked from Government".
"By those standards," Mr Higgins added, "Deputy Kitt's memory lapse, revealed last Monday, would have the Tánaiste on Tuesday at the Taoiseach's door with her carving knife and followed close behind by the Minister for Justice, Deputy McDowell, with a silver platter to receive the chief whip's head."
Mr Higgins asked if it had ever occurred to her that the "escalating cruelty and sheer callousness towards the fate of others, witnessed on the mean streets of Dublin in recent days and months", was really only a "distorted reflection of the greed and callous disregard for social solidarity demonstrated by the very profiteering speculators and developers" who had been financing her party and other parties?
Ms Harney said that we should be "proud of the record of this country" in recent years.
She continued: "Only by supporting enterprise can one create the kind of environment that has generated unprecedented prosperity, while I acknowledge there are many challenges and difficulties."
