SEANAD REPORT:FINE GAEL'S retreat from a cross-party approach to dealing with the predicament in which the country found itself was "absolutely pathetic", Eoghan Harris (Ind) said.

Last week, there had been the first tentative moves towards an agreement that every party had an obligation to do its best to get the country through a terrible period.

The only explanation for this return to partisan politics, he believed, was that that party still had a problem with its leader.

Fine Gael members reacted angrily, with some of them calling Mr Harris “a disgrace”.

Liam Twomey (FG) accused Mr Harris of cant dressed up as rhetoric. If Fianna Fáil was so interested in protecting the country, why didn’t it agree to a Tallaght strategy in reverse, he asked. “Why don’t you present your four-year plan, go, and then offer your support to the new government?”

Dan Boyle (GP), deputy Seanad leader, called for a special debate on the proposed four-year budgetary framework. Because it would have an impact beyond the next election, he believed that all parties should be fully involved in its formulation.

Paschal Donohoe (FG) said a new government could find itself in a situation where it had to deal with a programme that it had not negotiated and it could find itself facing European Commission fines if it did not implement it.

Marc MacSharry (FF) told the House it was unprecedented and historic that the Taoiseach had indicated to the Opposition that a key person in the Department of Finance would liaise with them in regard to proposals they might wish to make.

John Paul Phelan (FG) said the Government had not listened to his party when it had made constructive proposals over the last seven or eight years.

There should be no public service pensions above €100,000, Fiona O’Malley (Ind) said. “We simply cannot afford them. I accept that people have given the State service and that they have contractual expectations. But all our expectations are changing. Why should public servants be any different?”