Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

This debate is founded on a view of politics as a never-ending campaign, where every decision and word is viewed solely through the lens of electoral calculation. The Fine Gael Party has not sought to outline the details of an alternative government, but merely to provide another opportunity for its partisan speeches. These are the same speeches which were delivered on the first day of this Dáil, when Deputy Kenny announced that even though he had lost the election, he had a mandate to govern.

Our country is in the middle of an international recession of unprecedented scale in the modern economy. We have moved rapidly to deal with the unprecedented nature of that and to respond in terms of the public finances, the banking situation and in terms of developing a smart enterprise economy which will return the country to export oriented growth.

Many speakers have spoken about the past ten years. One of the great myths that has been peddled is that all of the past ten years was a waste or lost opportunity or that growth was spurned or spirited away. That is not the case. The past ten years witnessed an incredible transformation of Ireland in terms of physical, education and health infrastructure. I invite anyone to cast his or her mind back ten years to recall what any hospital, institute of technology or university campus was like then compared to now. There is no comparison in terms of the transformation that has taken place in scale expansion.

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