ANGER is growing at this week's closure of the Seanad as house speaker Donie Cassidy returned from a golfing trip in Turkey.

Speaking to the Herald, Labour Senator Ivana Bacik said: "I'm very angry about it."

Her comments came as house speaker, Fianna Fail Senator Donie Cassidy, angrily rejected suggestions that the Seanad was closed to accommodate a golfing trip. He returned from Turkey last night.

Senator Bacik said she had assumed the Seanad would be open this week, as the Dail was open. "The Seanad has a lot of work to get through, which will now get rushed through the next time we meet. I'm on the record as objecting to the closure since last Thursday," Senator Bacik said. "Once we knew the Dail was open this week we had assumed that the Seanad would be too."

Senator Bacik was supported in her views on the Seanad's failure to sit this week by Fine Gael Senator Eugene Regan.

"We opposed it as best we could but the Government have the numbers and so of course it passed in the vote," Senator Regan told the Herald.

In a bid to stem the growing controversy, Senator Cassidy last night denied the Seanad was closed due to a golfing trip. Instead, he claimed it was the fault of Fine Gael chief whip, Senator Maurice Cummins.

"I gave up my whole bloody weekend in the name of Ireland," he said.

"I take the running of the Seanad very seriously. My track record has proved second to none. We sit three days a week the same as the Dail."

However, Mr Cassidy claimed that he hadn't opposed the Seanad sitting this week, but that he required 10 pairs from Mr Cummins, who told him he could not give them to him.

"Every senator knew we weren't sitting this week. Then out of the blue last Tuesday the Fine Gael party decided they wanted to sit next week. I said there's no problem sitting next week if you give me the pairs. He [Cummins] said 'I can't give you the pairs'," he explained.

Ludicrous

Pairing arrangements mean that senators who are missing are given an exemption by being "paired" with other opposing senators who agree to abstain from voting.

Senator Cummins claimed that 10 pairs was a ludicrous number to ask for.

"It was only a way of trying to put the blame on Fine Gael," he said.

However, other senators did not agree with the leader, with Senator Bacik criticising the Seanad for lack of order.

"One of the things I've been very critical of is that the Seanad timetable is chaotic," she said. "We get a lot of justice bills rushed through at the end of the week, and it should be reasonably ordered."

She despaired of the time lost which, she says, causes the house to be overloaded with bills.

"Once we read in the papers about the golf trip it was easy to become very cynical about the whole thing," she added.

See Gerry O'Carroll, Page 33

- Sascha O'Toole