Dara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate my colleague on helping to organise this debate and on giving the House the opportunity to vote, as it did to put us into the programme. Nobody on the Government benches is suggesting that the job is approaching completion or that there is any sense of celebration. There is still a fairly stern determination to continue what has been a very difficult couple of years to arrive at a point where we can look back at this period and see Ireland return to a very stable and strong economic position.

It is important to put in context exactly where we were a number of years ago, with our tax revenues fallen by 40% from one of the narrowest tax bases in Europe, a banking system that had failed, our economy in serious decline with significant negative growth and our reputation, which is not necessarily important in itself but is vital for attracting foreign direct investment, in tatters. Even in a time of economic crisis we were losing competitiveness, one of the core bases on which we had built up our economy. We were borrowing almost €3 billion per month, which has been now reduced to less than €1 billion. House prices were plummeting, but today we see they have stabilised and are starting to rise. For most people the most important indicator, unemployment, had trebled over those periods, but has now, finally, started to fall to what could be considered a reasonable rate, with more than 3,000 jobs per month being created. This is unquestionably the best time to exit the bailout.

When we talk about the precautionary credit line, I have been struck by the absence of any discussion about what the conditionality would be, who would determine the conditionality, how much would be involved in the backstop and for how long it would be. It is my, perhaps somewhat ill-informed, opinion that because there was such a vacuum in the conditionality, to wait and try to arrive at an agreed precautionary credit line would have given rise to far more uncertainty than that in which we now find ourselves. That is because the quantum of money was relatively small. One year's borrowing requirement is an approximate figure, which is approximately €10 billion. Given that we already have approximately €23 billion in our own National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, a long, protracted process of negotiating to establish the precautionary credit line would have proven extremely difficult and perhaps negative in itself for our economy.

Equally, given the reality that every economic unit or nation must ultimately, over time match expenditure with income, balance its books and function as an independent entity, it was a question of our taking the plunge and moving out on our own. I can understand why Fianna Fáil in particular would have insisted on trying to have stabilisers. The analogy of the bicycle is being used a lot. Last time members of Fianna Fáil were in control of the bike, not only did the bike not have stabilisers, it did not have brakes or lights, they were cycling without a helmet and, some would say perhaps inebriated, and they cycled the bike off a cliff. Of course they are extremely nervous now and are clearly neither prepared to take nor capable of taking control of a bike, an economy or a country.

That is in stark contrast to Fine Gael and the Labour Party in coalition which have confidence in the ability of the country to continue the great work the people have done to restore our economic future and democracy. All of us on this side of the House look forward to the challenges ahead, but it will be the people who will do the work, for themselves, in the next few years.

See this speech in context