Ms Mary Harney:

Well, Deputy, the ideology that I have comes from my background. I believe in hard work and the dignity of work. I believe in lowering taxes on work. I think the things you want to encourage in the economy should not be subjected to high taxes. I believe in a broadened tax base and even when the Commission on Taxation, that was put in place post-2007, reported, they did not suggest increasing the tax rates. We do need a wider tax base. Regulation, I think, as document ... core document 40 will say, on page 87, I was the one that was being proactive, as the official says in the note to the Minister for Finance. I think there are a lot of myths about what we stand for. I'm for regulated markets, appropriately regulated markets. You know, way back when I was a Minister of State in the Department of the Environment, we established the Environmental Protection Agency because I felt local authorities hadn't the competence or the expertise to regulate very complex industries. In Health, we introduced new regulation of the Medical Council and of pharmacies - brought in lay majorities. In the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, I introduced the new Director of Corporate Enforcement. I think that's an indication of my commitment to regulation. It's not regulation for the sake of it; it's regulation that is effective.

I believe ... we believe in a philosophy that encourages enterprise, rewards work. I was the Minister that brought in the minimum wage. So, sometimes there's a lot of myths about what we stand for. I think my philosophy and my approach to politics is shared by a wide number of people in Ireland. We certainly weren't a populist party in the run-in to the 2002 election. We were cutting back on community employment because I believed, at a time of full employment, we didn't need to be moving towards 40,000 people in community employment. That was unpopular, even among some of the Government Deputies, so I think we ... we reformed the insurance industry. Again, there was a strong lobby by the legal profession against that, but insurance came down dramatically following the introduction of the PIAB. So, I hope, Deputy, that in my philosophy and my participation in Government, I pursued what I believed was in the national interest and I am proud overall of the achievements, but, of course, I regret very much the mistakes we made, collectively, as a Government, and the pain that that brought to so many of our citizens.