Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

It is worth reminding ourselves of the facts. The reality is that there is a major economic crisis that is not unique to Ireland. Every major economy in the world has gone through this crisis, which requires specific and detailed handling. The United States, Japan, the United Kingdom and the entire eurozone face a crisis. As a small open economy we know we too have to deal with the crisis. The Opposition benches would have us believe that none of this is happening in the real world and that the international financial markets did not go through a period of unprecedented and dramatic decline. They would have us ignore the turmoil that occurred when companies such as Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup, in effect, hit the wall. They are not willing to factor any of those realities into their analyses or contributions. As Deputy Bruton said, the first requirement in dealing with an economic crisis is to be aware of the facts and to deal with them, yet Fine Gael and Labour have been attempting to conjure up politically self-serving scenarios which they know are not truthful.

In previous debates I made it clear that we must act on four broad fronts to get ourselves out of the current economic tsunami. Whatever we think of the banks, we must stabilise their position. We must stabilise our public finances. In tandem with the stabilisation of the banking sector and of the public finances, we must protect as many jobs as we can. Finally, we must support those who are out of work and show solidarity with them. Hectoring each other in this House and twisting the facts will achieve none of those priorities.

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