Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Cowen, I was very conscious of your comments - and this being my last question to you - very conscious of your comments this morning where you were very aware of decisions that may be required as to how they would impact employment levels and your ambition for full employment in the country, about how adjustments would impact upon people in their day-to-day lives and you gave a very colourful image of a pensioner with an extra €5 their pockets and so ... as well. But this does raise the question that I'd like to ask you: did the decision not to implement difficult but short-term decisions during this period, ultimately, result in the long-term requirement for much harder and difficult decisions to be made?