Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the initiative the Minister took in recent days in the area of pay in the public service and also in the semi-State sector. More important than pay is the quality and leadership skills of people in these senior positions. The NTMA, since it was established under the leadership of former Minister for Finance, Mr. Ray MacSharry, and former Taoiseach, the late Mr. Charles Haughey, more than 20 years ago, has done much good work on behalf of the State. That is an area at which we should look.

On pay, if we had staff of the right calibre who had the prescience to see what was coming down the tracks, whether in the Department of Finance, the Financial Regulator or the Central Bank, and we had been paying them €10 million per annum, and they had taken the right decisions to ensure the correction in the property market and that the liquidity which led to the insolvency within the banks was corrected, and had taken on the profligacy, which somebody mentioned, in the public service with the increase in numbers and increase in pay, and good prudential policies had been pursued, it would have been money well spent. We must lay emphasis on the quality of staff, not only on the optics. I am concerned that we are dealing with the optics, having regard to some of what is being said.

I am also concerned that I heard the Minister mention that some of the economic indicators are very positive. I do not know from where he is getting that. I suspect it is from those who advised previous Administrations within the Department. If one looks at what is happening globally, there are serious challenges ahead of us.