Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

——and the days of unwarranted pay increases, big bureaucracy, soft-option politics and loose spending are also at an end. Things must change.

The Government has forgotten what it is to survive in a small open economy. One must be alert, nimble and quick to change. There is a new generation in Ireland, the members of which are ambitious, energetic and creative. These people give their best and expect high standards elsewhere. They will not tolerate the sluggish, complacent and wasteful approach the Government continues to display. They have carried those opposite on their backs for too long. Today was the opportunity to show that the Government has the ambition and capacity to lead in terms of introducing change.

Leadership is not about talking gravely in solemn tones. It involves having intense, driving determination to achieve best practice in the context of what happens in the public service. Leadership also involves demonstrating that one can lead from the front and that one will not seek to protect one's own comforts but will instead shoulder the load and demand the standards of oneself that one demands of others. In this most important test, the Government has failed. It is time to initiate the programme of reform to which I refer. Today, it was already seven years too late to do so. The Government has again failed to instigate change.

See this speech in context