Ciarán Cannon (Fine Gael)

I was going to raise the issue of a vacant stand at a food fair in Brussels last week which was one of the first opportunities we had to generate new employment in the country, but the constant calls for a consensus approach from the Government side, and the call, in particular, for a debate from Senator Boyle this morning, must be addressed. I ask the Members opposite for one example in the past five years when they have taken on board one constructive creative idea from the Opposition, either in this House or in the other House, because that simply has not happened and it would never happen while Fianna Fáil is in Government. Earlier this year we had a debate about water services following weeks of a drought in particular parts of the country and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government sat there and smirked across at us at our idea of generating a single national water authority. There was one fantastic idea that could have been taken on board by the Government but was not. What made that approach even more laughable was that the very same idea was contained within his own Green plan for economic recovery. It is now time to acknowledge that Fianna Fáil does not understand consensus nor has it ever understood it. The bedrock of our recovery economically must be based on trust. Benjamin Disraeli once said that all power is a trust. That trust has been shattered by Fianna Fáil and, unfortunately, by the Green Party by its association with Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fáil has chosen to break the people's trust. A national Government is not what we need. A new Government is what we need, and one without any Fianna Fáil presence.