Jim Glennon (Dublin North, Fianna Fail)

In my earlier contribution I took issue with some points raised by the Opposition and I will continue in that vein. Deputy Burton referred to a necklace of large towns around west Dublin, naming some of them. I am interested in her sense of direction because one of the towns referred to was Balbriggan. The people of Balbriggan will be interested to know how the Labour Party sees their place in the greater Dublin area. When I left home this morning, they were still 20 miles due north of Dublin. When I go home this evening, please God, they will still be there unless the Labour Party has suddenly decided to shift them.

One point of Deputy Burton's that I took particular issue with was her reference to an alleged imbalance and deficit in infrastructure in west Dublin. She referred to the coastal area of Dublin as the gold coast, a place where ordinary people do not live as they only live in west Dublin. I take severe exception to that on behalf of my constituents and a large proportion of the people of Dublin. The Dublin North constituency has the same infrastructural difficulties that people in west Dublin have. The only difference is that we have been living with them longer. I reject any innuendo that those of us in north Dublin live in leafy suburbs, having an easy time of it. That is not the case. I invite Deputy Burton to north County Dublin to travel into Dublin city by train early in the morning with commuters. She will find a situation similar to that in her area.

The increase in employment by 90,000 is by any definition staggering. This is way ahead of the high growth figures of the 1990s. A particularly interesting aspect of it is that the number of female workers increased by 6.2% whereas the number of male workers increased by only4.2%. For every five people entering the workforce, three are female. That is a notable change, probably an historical shift.

I congratulate the Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, and his predecessor Mr. McCreevy on their handling of the economy since taking office. It is one of the great truisms of Irish politics that Fianna Fáil in Government means a strong economy and that has been borne out by the performance in recent years.

I also congratulate Deputy Connolly for attending today's debate when the established parties around him appear to believe it is not worth participating in. That reflects badly on them. I have already commented on their lack of constructive contribution to the debate. We never claimed on this side of the House to have a monopoly of wisdom but from some of the contributions this morning we are beginning to doubt ourselves. It appears the main Opposition parties have taken my words to heart and have decided to opt out completely.

It may be a trivial point but I emphasise the importance of the reduction in the average working week. It is down from 37 to 36.9 hours and I hope that is an indication of a trend to come. I wish to develop this issue and I will do so outside the Chamber as well. It is important to strike a balance between work life and social life within a working week. I have heard much recently about the time commuters spend commuting. It is an unfortunate by-product of the success of our economy and the Government is trying to deal with it. As a Dublin Deputy I would be interested to see figures for the average working week for somebody in the greater Dublin area and compare them to those of somebody in, for example, Deputy Connolly's constituency of Cavan-Monaghan or somewhere on the western seaboard. It would make for interesting reading and I will ask the CSO today for a breakdown.

At the risk of boring the audience, I am disappointed by the complete absence of Members of the established Opposition parties from the Chamber for this discussion. It is indicative of their bankruptcy of ideas. Their performance this morning in the earlier part of this debate, taken in tandem with their absence now, makes it entirely appropriate that they should be absent for the remainder of the debate.

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