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

I thank the Deputy. Do we have any further speakers? The voting block will arise, I am told, at approximately 9.10 p.m. Do the members wish to finish or do they wish to return later? Are we gluttons for punishment, flagellation or anything like that? No?

I will make a couple of comments. In the past, I have spoken many times about the fact that I strongly support the line taken by the Ministers.

I remember the financial crash quite well. Everyone was asking if we could bail ourselves out. There was an idea that we were Irish and that we had friends all over the world who would rush to our aid. Not so. I remember some very prominent people who said that the cause of the problem in Ireland was the fact that our corporation tax was so low. They did not mention that several other European countries had the same problem in a different guise, but they had the benefits of it and those benefits were greater than those we enjoyed. They did not tell the whole story. We should learn from the past. There is the question of the rainy day fund and the fact that it is raining every day. As the Minister said, you could spend what you had every day. When the crunch comes, if we do not have the wherewithal to call upon what we got during the relatively good times, we will be deeply at fault and we will experience successive crashes. Cyber strikes will also be a threat into the future. We do not know when they come or to what extent they will effect us.

Prudent management of the economy is crucial. It is fine for us to all come together and say that we will spend the money because we have it, but that is not such a good idea. We can point to all the hardships, and it is true that there are hardships, but while interest rates have gone up considerably, I remember a time when people were charged 20% in respect of their mortgages. That is not so long ago. It is the same with industry and people who were poor and could ill-afford the strike when it came.

We got advice afterwards from all quarters. I apologise to any economists inside the room or outside it. From all over the globe, they came forward. They scoffed at the attempts that were being made for the country to recover. They did not care. Nobody cared at that stage. They stated that we would need a second bailout, and maybe even a third, and asked who would listen to us. What was happening here was described as leprechaun economics and all of that. They knew all these things. Some of these guys are still around. They are still making statements that have as much weight as they did the first time when we were on the ropes. The moral of the story, as the Ministers well know, is that we have very few friends when we are in danger. There were a couple of spectacular situations and eventually the European Union did come on board and help out. When the Italian Commissioner at the time was asked how long this would go on, he said it would do so for as long as it took. That calmed down all the markets overnight. Nothing else would do at that particular time.

I am sorry for butting in at this point. I thank the Ministers and their staff. We will be glad to take closing statements at this point if the Ministers feel like it.