DUBLIN - Ireland's unraveling government said Monday it was open to negotiating a fast-tracked plan for its dying days that would allow an early election to be held next month.
But Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said opposition leaders must be willing to provide enough time to pass a critical tax-raising bill before parliament is dissolved. At stake is international confidence in Ireland, a once-booming nation that two months ago was forced to negotiate an international bailout loan potentially growing to C67.5 billion (US$91 billion).
Lenihan spent Monday night negotiating with opposition leaders to defuse their threat to topple the government this week in a confidence vote. Prime Minister Brian Cowen lost his parliamentary majority over the weekend, and losing a confidence vote would trigger the government's immediate collapse.
Lenihan said the government couldn't dissolve parliament until next week at the earliest, because the Finance Bill -- which aims to boost Ireland's income taxes and close tax-dodging loopholes -- requires weeks of debate and amendment.
"We are a minority government, we do have to work with the opposition parties, but we cannot be pushed into a general election regardless of the proper procedures for the Finance Bill," he said.
Opposition lawmakers accused Lenihan of scheming to delay the election until March because of disarray in the governing Fianna Fail party. They threatened to pursue no-confidence motions against both Cowen and the government unless agreement was reached immediately for the Finance Bill to become law and the parliament dissolved by Friday night.
"We simply cannot allow this shambolic government to continue beyond this week," said Simon Coveney of the opposition Fine Gael party. "Either compromise and dissolve the parliament by the weekend, or the opposition will trigger a general election earlier than that and we will deal with the Finance Bill after the election."
But later, politicians from the small nationalist Sinn Fein party stormed out of the talks protesting at the agreement taking shape inside Lenihan's Department of Finance headquarters.
Sinn Fein lawmaker Pearse Doherty said other parties appeared close to agreeing on a schedule that would see the Finance Bill become law and parliament dissolved by Tuesday, Feb. 1, at the latest. He said they still were arguing over whether lawmakers should be kept on standby for a rare Saturday sitting of parliament.
Doherty -- whose party opposes the government's entire austerity program and wants parliament dissolved before the Finance Bill is passed -- described the progress of the talks as "nothing short of disgusting."
Most analysts consider Feb. 25 the most likely new election date. Last week, under pressure from the Greens, Cowen declared that early elections would take place March 11. Lenihan left open the possibility of an election either on Feb. 25 or March 4.
Cowen lost his parliamentary majority Sunday when Fianna Fail's coalition partner, the Green Party, announced they had run out of patience with his error-prone leadership and defected to the opposition.
Green leaders said their six lawmakers would vote to pass the Finance Bill -- but weren't committed to backing Cowen.
Cowen suffered a crushing defeat Thursday when he tried to reshuffle his Cabinet to promote Fianna Fail election candidates, but the Greens stopped him. The botched manoeuvr meant he lost five Cabinet ministers but couldn't replace any of them. He lost two more ministers Sunday with the Greens' withdrawal, leaving him with only seven ministers to run 15 departments.
Pat Rabbitte, a lawmaker from the opposition Labour, said his party wasn't prepared "to let what's left of the government survive for 5 minutes longer than is absolutely necessary."
