"I want to say in relaxed fashion to all the members of parliament that I am personally and my family is prepared in this year of elections to face all this kind of political debate," the prime minister said at the closing session of a political meeting of his Social Democratic Party in Porto.


Saying that he had been questioned by journalists about whether he had submitted declarations after the deadline, he said he wanted to tell anyone who wanted to "dig around" in his life that he had certainly missed deadlines many times in his life, but that when the state demanded that he pay up he had always paid what was due, and that he had never used his official position to benefit himself.


The prime minister was responding to the controversy arising out of a report by Público newspaper, since confirmed, that he had failed to pay social security contributions for a period when he was self-employed.


Passos Coelho had told the newspaper that he had never received any demand from the social security office to pay up.
Opposition politicians have noted that, under legislation in effect for almost 20 years, the self-employed are responsible for assessing their own obligations towards the social security system.