Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

It does not even practise what it preaches and it breaks its word and contract. The programme for Government is in shreds and cannot be implemented in the way the Government said it would.

Behind the economic statistics, there are human factors. Some 300,000 people will shortly be on the live register. Some 23 other EU countries have falling unemployment rates so why is it that Ireland is going in the opposite direction with a serious increase in unemployment and the numbers on the live register? These are the human factors behind the economic statistics and we will find much social pain and disruption in the period ahead. The Government has allowed the country to be built on the back of a property boom that could not last.

We are now over-retailed to the point that many people have moved into large shopping malls with the inducement of two years of free rent. These people are finding the capacity is not there any more because the retail sector has become over-pressurised. We must get back to the fundamental economic issue — that this is an island country which makes money by exporting goods and services but we have lost our competitiveness in that regard.

Money set aside in the programme for Government for opening up next generation broadband has never materialised. There is €200 million in the programme for Government for IT in the schools, where the future generation of engineers, entrepreneurs, businesspeople, housewives etc. will emerge from, but they are put at a distinct disadvantage by taking even that money away.

See this speech in context