Brendan Ryan (Labour)

What we did was to hand over an economy in better shape than it is now. It had a better average growth rate and a lower inflation rate than the former Minister for Finance, Mr. McCreevy, managed and had a budget surplus that he only managed to sustain by taking large amounts of money from the social insurance fund. Those are the facts of what was a responsible Government.

The problem was that the Government's agenda, driven as it was by the minority party in government, included the Minister for Finance although he claimed to be in Fianna Fáil, and also the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, the Tánaiste, the Minister for Transport and probably the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government for a long time. There were actually five Progressive Democrat Ministers in the Government, two officially and three unofficially, all with a common ideology that did not involve or include public provision on the scale required by this problem.

The problem is not just about public provision. It includes much more. However, when there is an ideological resistance to the idea of large scale public provision, it is impossible to come up with a coherent position. A coherent position is what is sadly lacking in the Government's position. It lacks a strategy which we can see it build on year on year, a strategy that should have started years ago. In the Minister's speech he states it is in the process of development.

I love the term "high level group". I have heard about many high level groups. The phrase usually means a few senior civil servants are having a chat over a cup of coffee. The high level group mentioned by the Minister is to recommend an integrated national policy on child care and early education that will result in improved co-ordination at national and local level, etc. The group will recommend a policy which will presumably then go to Government to be thought about before proposals are produced. When will we get these proposals? We will get them about three weeks before the next general election. They will have the same substance as the 200,000 medical cards, the 3,000 acute beds and all the other promises made in the three weeks coming up to a general election.

The fundamental problem is that the ideological conflict has re-emerged at the heart of Government. Fianna Fáil has suddenly discovered that hitching itself to the Progressive Democrat star is a recipe for disaster and that it is now being blamed for the extraordinary ideological rigidities of the Progressive Democrats. The Progressive Democrat Party will survive with its four or five seats, but Fianna Fáil will lose ten or 15 because it walked away from its roots and instincts and allowed itself to be driven by a combination of blindness and ideology.