Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

——when the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance stated at one of their great press conferences that, on a predicted growth rate of 4% for 2008, the Government would be able to do A, B, X and Y, reduce the top and bottom rate of tax, reduce PRSI by 2% and give out medical cards like confetti. Only the Government knew what was really in the books. The Opposition did not because it did not have its hand on the tiller.

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