Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

She will probably have to deal with policy issues anyway.

As Leader of the Opposition, it is a privilege to congratulate all of the new appointees and wish them the best of luck. However, it is also my duty to point to the fact that the appointees come into this House with new seals of office from the President at a time when the Fianna Fáil slogan "a lot done, a lot more to do" has become a sick reminder of riches squandered and hopes dashed. Perhaps they can tell the 100,000 families, including many young couples, who now face negative equity on houses worth far less than they recently paid that a lot has been done. Two years ago, young couples could not buy houses because of stamp duty. The then Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen took action but it was too late for it to be useful. Right now, stamp duty is not the issue. For many house purchasers the issue is a constant nagging dread that they will not be able to meet the repayments on the dream house that in some cases has turned into a nightmare.

Fianna Fáil is always quick to seek credit for economic success and economic failure is always somebody else's fault. It deflects blame at all costs and at every opportunity and never minds the inconvenient truths. Never mind that international factors did not force the then Minister, Deputy Cowen, to talk up the housing market in 2005 and 2006, when the advice he was getting from international experts was that Irish house prices were massively over-valued. International factors did not force the Taoiseach, Deputy Cowen, in his four budgets as Minister for Finance, to massively ramp up day-to-day public spending by two and half times the underlying growth rate of the economy. International factors have had nothing to do with the fact that since 2001 we have been steadily losing the share of foreign export markets we built up during the 1990s. International factors cannot explain why Ireland has had the biggest increase in unemployment of any EU country in the past year, when unemployment fell in 24 of the 27 EU member states. International factors are not responsible for Ireland having the highest cost of living increases in the eurozone since 2001. By assigning blame for our economic woes on foreign factors alone, the Taoiseach, Deputy Cowen, and his new Government encourage a dangerously complacent attitude, suggesting if we stay the course and wait for the storm to pass we will be all right on the day.

I have promised the new Taoiseach the wholehearted support of Fine Gael for innovation, initiative and empathy with the Irish people, and I will deliver that support where appropriate. However, I cannot and will not allow the good feelings on the Government benches to distract from reality. The reality is that, out of the best times any Irish Government was ever handed, Fianna Fáil has created catastrophe and chaos. Under the Taoiseach, Deputy Cowen's, stewardship as Minister for Finance, the Government mismanaged the public finances and the housing sector. The Government did nothing about economic and public sector reform. We know this because just two weeks ago in this House the then Tánaiste, Deputy Cowen, described my raising of the tragic case of a hospitalised woman as simplistic and facile. The implication of this is inescapable; he has to deal with more complex and difficult issues. This contradicts his speech this evening

However, up to now, he has not dealt with more complex and difficult issues. He talks impressively about public service reform but we need look no further than the monolith that has been created in the Health Service Executive, HSE. It is now entirely dysfunctional and is being consistently talked up by the Minister for Health and Children.

As pointed out by Deputy Leo Varadkar, the country is awash with quangos, so the citizen gets bounced from one to another to a third, wasting time and money. Deputy Brian Cowen, as Minister for Finance, did not cut back on any of this. He had a decade to do it in the very best of times. For many, however, they are becoming the worst of times.

They say the Taoiseach is a clever man, which is undoubtedly true. He has no problem spending money. Some €15 million is being spent on a vanity public information campaign for the Green Party. Up to €20 million is being spent on a campaign to advertise Transport 21. Does any Member on that side of the House understand how these public relations activities nauseate people? These advertisements on national television and billboards are for programmes people expect to be delivered by a competent and decisive Government. This €35 million is wasted on public relations promotional programmes that will not insulate one single house, deliver one single school, put one bus on the road or keep one extra hospital bed open. Some €35 million is wasted on billboard campaigns when people know the cost of living increases every day. They know the cost of making-do when schools are turned into charitable organisations and where communities are expected to fork out to keep theirs going. I hope the incoming Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, will change this for the good of the parents and the children of the nation.

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