Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Okay. I feel I must bring in Deputy Rabbitte. And I want to just raise one issue with Deputy Rabbitte and that is the use of the platform that an Opposition party has through all the various mechanisms in the Oireachtas - the Private Members', Leader's Questions, ministerial questions. And I have examined the record of Fine Gael and Labour during a number of years in Opposition - 2005, 2006, 2007. And during that period, for example, 2005, '06, '07, Labour had 24 Private Members' motions and they dealt with a range of issues, all important, from bin charges to class sizes a number of times, civil union legislation, public transport in Dublin, Coroners Bill, health spending, etc., and I ... the Leader's Questions are similar and more. Why is it that the key issues, when we look back now, of the regulation of the banking system, the growth in lending to construction and property, for example, and pro-cyclical fiscal policy didn't feature strongly enough during that period? And does it go back to what you said in your witness statement, "In our adversarial system of parliamentary democracy, governments always want to do good things and oppositions always want government to do more good things"? Does that characterise the Labour Party's approach in Opposition?