Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

As I said, Fine Gael cannot be simultaneously in favour of both saving and spending. I have figured out at last why Fine Gael and the Labour Party spend so much time in opposition. It is because they are congenitally predisposed to negativity. I came across a quotation which illustrates this point and which is almost 50 years old. In 1962, in reference to Fine Gael and the Labour Party, Seán Lemass said:

There seems to be an attitude of mind in those parties . . . that they have a right to attack the Government and to paddle their party canoes up any creek that appears inviting to them, but that it is ungentlemanly for us to defend ourselves against their attacks and outrageous for us to criticise them in turn. Political life and public office impose many burdens but they also confer a few pleasures. One of the pleasures is that of criticising one's critics, exposing their foolishness and demonstrating their errors. That is a pleasure of which I do not propose to deprive myself.

Nor do I propose to deprive myself of it. I do not see anyone on this side of the House depriving himself or herself of that pleasure for many years to come.

I support the motion and commit myself to managing defence expenditure in such a way as to sustain our social and economic progress into the future.

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