The Tánaiste has rejected an assertion by the Labour leader that the controversy over the funding of the Punchestown agriculture and equestrian centre should have led to a ministerial resignation.
Mr Pat Rabbitte said: "In any other jurisdiction at least one Minister would go as a result of this. However, the Tánaiste has sat at the Cabinet table and not just on this. This is just symptomatic of the arrogant decisions taken by a remote Government."
Ms Harney replied: "He knows perfectly well that this is not a resignation issue, so let us have a few facts."
When Mr Rabbitte again insisted that it was, Ms Harney said all members of the House wanted the facility, some more enthusiastically than others.
The Dáil exchanges followed strong criticism on Tuesday of the Departments of Agriculture and Finance over their failure to properly evaluate the €15 million in funding for the centre which is in the constituency of the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy.
The Minister for Finance was not in the Chamber yesterday, but the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, was present on the Government benches when Ms Harney took the Order of Business in the absence of the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern.
The matter was first raised by the Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, who said the Tánaiste had made it clear in her election literature on behalf of the PDs that sound public finances were essential to good management of the country.
"Has the Tánaiste read the report or synopsis from the Committee of Public Accounts?
"Does she agree that, in this situation, it appears that the project came about because of discussions between the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Finance?"
Ms Harney replied: "We must certainly learn lessons from the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General regarding the evaluation procedure for capital projects and the processes that we have in place in Departments."
Mr Kenny asked if the Tánaiste accepted that political and collective responsibility was shared between the two Ministers.
"No evaluation was carried out on this project, which cost three times the saving made by the cutback in widows' contributory pensions.
"The benefits to the racecourse and racing in general have been slight, and Santa's Kingdom seems to have had a greater impact than indoor equestrian events."
Ms Harney said the facility had been warmly welcomed by the then deputy Mr Alan Dukes, Deputy Willie Penrose and Deputy Jack Wall.
Mr Rabbitte said there was nothing wrong with the evaluation procedures.
"The point is that they were not applied in this case. The Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Walsh, wrote to his racing friend, the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, and with a turnaround of less than seven days, the latter gave 100 per cent approval for €6.9 million for a pony centre at Punchestown.
"Then, when the applicants got over the shock of a 100 per cent grant, they decided that they would come back for the same again and bring the cost to €12.9 million in what Deputy Sean Ardagh, a member of the Committee of Public Accounts, described as the cowboys finding that they could come back to town to raid the bank a second time. That is what happened."
When Ms Harney repeated that the project had been warmly welcomed by Labour party deputies, Mr Rabbitte said they were not involved in evaluating the site.
