Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was sitting in my office, in a warmer climate, enjoying myself and watching the goings-on of the committee. I was moved to descend to the chamber again. I have the utmost respect for Deputies Doherty and Boyd Barrett, but when they are talking rubbish, it helps to tell them. We should remind ourselves of where we came from and what happened over the last ten years in which we were in government, in which they say that some person who was not doing his or her job was in government. There was no money anywhere. If one disputes that, then what was the International Monetary Fund, IMF, doing in Government Buildings for a number of years, including Mr. Sakamoto and friends? When an bord snip nua began to expand its clippings and scissors across every single Department, cuts took place that should never have had to take place. Before that happened, I heard that we were supposed to be the richest country in the world. What a load of rubbish. We were never the richest country in the world but, based on property, salaries and incomes, we had elevated ourselves into that position. We were codding ourselves.

While Mr. Sakamoto and company were plotting our future, it was not going to be plotted out with lots of money to spend on the urgent needs that were obvious at that time, including housing, health and other services. That did not come into it. We had massive debt and had to be bailed out. We had to bail out the banks. We seem to have forgotten all this. We have been through an awful trauma over the past 12 years. Nobody seems to understand the debilitating effect it had on the country. The banking system collapsed. There was no money, credit or credit rating. Thousands of businesses all over the country went by the wayside, both small and large. I was canvassing during the 2011 general election and spoke with a family on the doorstep who were heading to Australia because they could not afford to pay the mortgage, having lost their jobs. Everything was gone, desolate, and everything was cold, hard reality. There were no friends, nobody coming to help us out, nobody to recognise us and nobody to say to us that we had been doing well so they would help us out and we would not have to pay back our debts. We had to pay back our debts and are still paying them back. We will be paying them back for years to come.

I am concerned that we are about to sell the same story that we were selling before. We cannot do that. If we want to go back there, then we should do so with our eyes wide open, saying that we want to bankrupt ourselves and to be how we were before. Many houses were built some years ago, but the country was bankrupt and broke. Where do we go from here and have we learned any lesson?

I am not so sure that we have. One thing is certain if we find ourselves in a similar situation. We must remember how quickly it can happen. Things are very volatile at the moment for a whole lot of reasons and things can turn overnight. Hopefully it will not happen that way because of good government but things can happen and if the slide starts, then it happens at several levels at the same time. There is very little time to turn around and appeal to somebody or to blame somebody, or to say "Why did we not do this, that or the other?" or whatever the case may be. Unfortunately, we found ourselves in a bad mess. Fortunately, we worked our way through it. It was a tall order. It was not possible to build hospitals, schools and houses at the same time. It was not possible to do that. A fair attempt was made at it, however. Maybe all of the results that we wanted were not achievable.

I remember being at the all-party housing committee in 2014. We were all represented there. At that particular stage, I identified that an emergency plan was needed to deal with the housing situation, by whatever means, and to make an appeal to the International Monetary Fund, or wherever, in order to solve the problem. It did not happen for a whole variety of reasons. The fact of the matter is that it was not due to lack of effort or lack of inspiration. It was due to the reality that dawned upon us. Let us not forget the number of mornings we came in to work here and we wondered what was around the next corner, what announcement was going to be made from Merrion Street, who is going to make it and how often it was going to be made. This was reality and was a real time that happened not so long ago. It has the propensity to happen again.

Numerous people had alternative ways and means of dealing with the situation that existed at the time. All of them were wrong. Economic gurus of all descriptions said that we were going to need a second bailout, that we are going to have three bailouts or that Ireland was terminally ill and would need a continuous bailout. Then other people were saying that really, we should not have to pay these debts at all. To borrow money and not pay it back is lethal in an open trading economy. Once there is word that a country will not pay its bills, then the show is over. With the greatest of respect to my colleagues here, I ask that they please remember what it was like then. It is easy to forget the deep troughs we came through but they were there and it took a big effort. The people of this country had to shoulder the hod in that effort all of the time. There were countless cases of hardship, which are still happening, as a result of that time. It was an appalling thing to be in but that is the way it was. Hopefully, we have worked our way out of it or are on the way out.