Mr. Brian Cowen:

It framed the budgets. Of course it helped frame the budget. You had social partnership programmes to implement. It deals with people but they were on the basis that we would have a ... it was an overall fiscally and financially responsible framework. And, unless you have people all facing in the one way in this country, it is very difficult to get things sorted. And let's remember, you know, that whilst, you know, we went through the crisis and we weren't able to, through the social partnership process, come up with some agreements on reductions in pay, etc., which, you know, is understandable, you know, would be very difficult to achieve in the best of times, the fact is that the culture that had been inculcated through social partnership meant that we got that resolved eventually, and we got it resolved in a negotiation. There are other people who don't have that vehicle for social partnership, who are now struggling greatly, to the detriment of many people that those interests represent. And I think, you know, we shouldn't take it for granted - yes, a remodelling of it; yes, ensure we don't make same mistakes as the past; maybe yes, less of the detail and a bit more generality, rather than getting into the, you know, drilling down into every area of policy.

But I do believe that yes, people ... working people are interested in the number of places in universities as much as they are interested in what the health service is like as much as they're interested in what social welfare provision you can make for our ill and sick ... these are wider social contracts that are ... should be held together by the widest possible consensus of people and social parity is something, by the way, that is a stated aim and objective of our own party to pursue.