Mr. Brian Cowen:

And the policies I pursued, as I've stated to you, in relation to vulnerabilities that were emerging, I've outlined in detail in my speech. I've also stated that with hindsight, Deputy, with hindsight ... and I can only deal with, for example, property tax initiative ... incentives when I become Minister. With hindsight, you could say those should have been looked at before - but there was no one from the Opposition saying that, by the way - but, also, we should have constructed them first in the way that they now must be constructed legally, where any property relief in the future must have an ex-antecost-benefit analysis and can only last three years or will lapse automatically without a review that confirms benefit exceeds cost. That's just a prudent review mechanism. It's not that people were trying to do wrong when we had the other ones. They did a lot of good. In 1987, I can remember being a member of this House and never thought I'd see unemployment coming down into single figures again in my life, from the mid-'80s. And all of ... so those schemes played their part. The problem was that in some cases - and it's acknowledged in the consultancy reports that whilst they did good work - that the economic objectives had been attained and that you don't need these prime-pump arrangements at a time when growth becomes established.