Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)

In January 2010, the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, assured the Dáil that our economic future is bright. In his speech he guaranteed that the national minimum wage was untouchable as it had been introduced "to protect the weak in our labour market". Before the year was out, Fianna Fáil slashed the minimum wage from €8.65 to €7.65, a reduction of almost 12%. It blamed the cut on the constraints imposed by the EU and the IMF.

However, we now know that the minimum wage was eviscerated at a time when Fianna Fáil was still approving bonuses for banking executives and when Deputy Lenihan had a path worn to the tax man's door to have tax bills reviewed for all sorts of characters who were in contact with his office. During the last general election campaign the Labour Party promised to restore the national minimum wage to its former level. That process is now in train and will be completed shortly.

The Government readily acknowledges that this is just a small part of repairing the colossal damage that has been done to this country. The people who gained the least from our plastic boom are paying a high price following its collapse as a direct result of the disastrous response of the previous Administration. The impact of the collapse on ordinary Irish families is manifold. As the "Prime Time" programme last night demonstrated, regeneration schemes in our most disadvantaged areas lie abandoned by reckless developers, who fled at the first whiff of the downturn. The cruellest mockery is that while many of our citizens are forced to remain in run down housing estates reminiscent of something from a Seán O'Casey play, the same developers left acres of unserviced, incomplete ghost housing estates.

We would love to be able to rectify all the injustices, right all the wrongs and repair all the damage wrought by the previous, rotten Administration, but we cannot. People know and accept that we cannot, at least not immediately. Our country is broken; its economy has been devastated. However, it can and will be fixed. We must put the country back together piece by piece, day by day. Part of that process will involve repairing international relations, especially within the European Union. The revised memorandum we are discussing today, political and diplomatic efforts and the continuous process of renegotiation allow us the opportunity to do this.

These relations were not soured solely by the impact of the banking collapse three years ago. The rot had set in long before. While the former Minister, Charlie McCreevy, high-fived the representatives of the German and French banks and encouraged them to pour more fuel into an already exploding Irish economy, we neglected our relationships with our smaller European neighbours. They were unimportant because we were playing with the big boys. Member states of a similar size to Ireland were arrogantly told to come to this country so we could show them how it was done. We now know how it was done and we also know the price of playing with the so-called big boys. When the fun ended and the big boys explained the rules and handed us the bill, we looked around for help and sympathy from our European neighbours, particularly the smaller nations. There was none.

The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs faces the critical task of restoring our international standing, reputation and confidence. Slowly, bridges are being rebuilt. The revised memorandum of understanding proves there has been a discernible shift in the mood of many of our partners in Europe, in the institutions of the European Union and in the IMF. The process of restoring trust in Ireland has begun. It must not fail and we, as public representatives, must ensure it is not allowed to fail.

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