John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)

We had the debate earlier, in a different form, but with the same issues. Today during Question Time we dealt with some of the issues that were raised here. Although Deputy Penrose may disagree with my views on the public sector, nonetheless there is commentary within the OECD report which suggests certain changes should be made and that certain reforms are necessary. All I ask is that the culture and systems within that sector would change. Then we would have a system that we could all be proud of, including those who work in it. It would deliver effectively and efficiently in very difficult times on behalf of this country and it would offer a measurement against the rest of Europe in terms of benchmarking and how we are perceived abroad.

There was mention of other projects, where money was lost. It is true we lost money on certain projects. I sat on the Committee of Public Accounts as its Vice Chairman and most of my views are informed by that experience. Changes were made there in the wake of initial controversy and discovery of losses that brought about savings in terms of fixed price contracts. That proves that a committee of the House functions very well and is worthwhile.

In the last debate we had, the Labour Party and other Members went down the route of explaining how bad this country is, how poor we are——-

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