Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

——age of consent, Great Southern Hotels, school examinations, health reform. There is such incoherence among the three parties opposite that the plane would never take off and if it did, it would crash into the first mountain.

I wish to highlight some of the transformation that has taken place in Ireland during the past nine years. Unemployment is down from 10.9% to 4.3%; instead of 1.4 million people at work, 2 million people are at work; instead of a single person on average industrial earnings of €19,300 in 1997, that person is on €32,000 today; instead of paying tax after €70, they do not pay any tax.

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