James Heffernan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Professor Honohan for his presentation and presence. I heard on the news today that he had given back a fair chunk of his salary, for which I thank him. It is a very important gesture of goodwill and solidarity with families and working people who are finding it difficult and at the coalface of the austerity experiment.

A couple of weeks ago we heard the former chief of the IMF, Ashoka Mody, say with great clarity and the benefit of hindsight that perhaps we had done and expected too much. There is an argument that we should have laid it all out on the line, made the more difficult cuts and difficult decisions early on and got them out of the way, instead of stringing it out. Where does that leave us in tackling the legacy debt? Does it strengthen the Government's hand that we have people like Ashoka Mody on our side in acknowledging that perhaps we expected too much too soon?