Peter Power (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy Blaney for sharing the very limited time that is available.

It is regrettable that there has been so much negative comment on the economy by the Opposition and the media in the debate over the past two days. It is clear that there is confusion between instability in the financial markets and national economic instability. Those who are confusing the concepts would have done well to have attended the meeting of the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service last week, chaired by Deputy Michael Finneran, at which the Governor of the Central Bank made it perfectly clear that the fundamentals of the economy are absolutely strong. While share prices go up and down and financial market stability increases and decreases, the underlying, real economy remains the same, strong and robust. Most people would accept this.

I always respect the comments of my constituency colleague, Deputy Noonan, but on this occasion he is very much mistaken. His central thesis this evening was based on the premise that the budget did nothing. The reality is quite different. Although a number of countries, particularly the United States, are introducing quite radical and, some would say, untimely financial packages and interest rates, the Minister for Finance in Ireland introduced his fiscal package long before the financial instability. It was called the budget and it involved a measured, prudent, proportionate injection of liquidity that did not in any way jeopardise our financial market. Deputy Noonan dressed this up as reckless borrowing. We will take no lectures in this quarter from a Government that lost power in 1987 when the banks were knocking on the door due to Fine Gael's borrowing.

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