Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

We will not contribute to eroding confidence in the economy. The Opposition did nothing like what the Minister for Finance did last Friday. If we had our own currency last Friday, I wonder where he would have landed it. It is the job of the Taoiseach to restore confidence in the economy and give a steer to where things are going economically. The Taoiseach is responsible for us ending up in a recession. There is not much to be gained by continuing the blame game. People need to know how to take us out of it. To date, the Taoiseach has not given me a sense of where he is going with it, nor confidence that he knows where he is going with it, and the sooner he can give us the steer, confidence and assuredness that, having led us into a recession, he has some handle on how to lead us out of it, the better.

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