Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

There is much talk of a need for leadership, as if leadership would be something popular. This Bill, following the failure of the social partnership negotiations, is an act of leadership by the Taoiseach and the Government.

Obviously, the Opposition parties do not want Government leadership. They want to lead themselves, doing their best to disguise what they would have to do in government beforehand, as we will all have to go far beyond what has so far been decided up to today. Would they rescind this Bill once enacted, or do more than tweak it, as the Taoiseach is willing to do? I doubt it.

The Labour Party is reverting to its roots, as the parliamentary mouthpiece of the trade union movement. I remember, although I do not have the exact quotation, Deputy Ruairí Quinn admitting in a moment of candour about the Fine-Gael-Labour Coalition Government of 1982-87, of which he was a prominent member, that what it had done had helped to prop up public services and employment. We had at that time a low expectations economy with no more than two thirds of the average EC income per head, half the employment we have today and enterprise suffered.

Today, we must be more ambitious. There can be no question of just imposing higher taxes on the wider community to prop up a level of State-supported jobs, incomes and pension entitlements that is no longer affordable.

See this speech in context