Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Well, we pointed out the growth in public expenditure, we opposed the way that benchmarking had been introduced, for instance. We called for a renegotiation of the principle of the way decentralisation was being promoted and consistency in respect of both of the lowering of income tax and the retention of corporation tax, of the tax rate. So ... where we tried to focus, from our Opposition perspective, was to get back to being a lean, export-oriented, growth economy, which was based on manufacturing and on exports, which were proven in the ... in '94-'97, and continued for a year or two after that, until you had an extraordinary explosion in the construction sector, where you had a lot of credit and a lot of activity, which, sort of focused, I suppose, the minds of Government then, on their assumption that you could run all the services from the taxes that were coming in from a fuelled property, property section.