Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I wish to share time with Deputy Gilmore.

Ireland is at its best when its people come together as a community and society. The response to the disastrous floods is a reminder of the community spirit, meitheal and can-do approach that serves our country best. Firemen, soldiers, the voluntary sector, Red Cross, Civil Defence and private sector are all working together to serve the country.

Having listened this morning to the denigration of public service staff on the radio, it seemed to me that there are those who, rather intemperately, seek to promote a propaganda and hate war to divide the public and private sectors. Fianna Fáil, including its Ministers and backbenchers, should be careful about those who cry "war, war" rather than "jaw-jaw". I lived in Africa when the radio was used to drive societies apart. It is a cumulative phenomenon whereby, in the end, the other becomes the enemy and respect is destroyed.

I noted in the media today a reference to a conference that the Minister attended at which Mr. David Went, a prominent banker and businessman and chairman of the industry consultation panel of the Financial Services Regulator, was quoted as having said parliamentary oversight of bankers was more of a lynch mob process than anything else. He was very critical on certain points, including on bankers being asked questions in Parliament about why they had destroyed a large part of the economy and the banking system. In the same statement and in other speeches, Mr. Went called for massive increases in salaries for those at the top level of the financial services industry. He openly commended a reported increase of approximately €140,000 for the new regulator to be appointed in January.

As with Mr. Michael McDowell and Ms Margaret Thatcher, it has become fashionable for some of our economists to say fairness has nothing to do with the solution to our economic programmes. Philosophically, that is a profoundly incorrect approach.

In Ireland, citizens have a right to ask questions and have parliamentarians ask questions about what has led to our economic collapse. It is not just Fianna Fáil, malpractice, misgovernance and the lack of governance that have brought us to where we are, although they have undoubtedly contributed. Ireland is a mixed economy and needs a strong public sector in addition to a strong private sector. We do not need an economic model based on an extreme finance capital market model, which seems to be what many commentators are suggesting.

Ministers in office for 12 years have, in many cases, become rather contemptuous in casual private conversation of public servants. They fail to see their own failings, particularly their disastrous partisan decisions, such as Mr. Charlie McCreevy's decision on decentralisation, which has not only demoralised large parts of the public service, but has also caused some chaos. What can we demand of public servants? All younger public servants have no difficulty living in a world where work is done between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. without special extra payments. Modern communications, IT and the availability of transport mean the public service model that still applies in the minds of some is irrelevant to most young, qualified graduates. If the Ministers explore productivity in these areas, they will find common ground.

Bearing in mind the various difficulties that arose since we became independent, the reason we developed public sector companies was because the private sector was not willing to invest. Even in today's market, private sector businesses in Ireland, unlike those in countries such as Italy, frequently sell out as soon as they experience any kind of capital growth, either to other entrepreneurs or, as is more usual, international investors. People on the conservative side in the 1930s believed the development of an electricity network by the ESB would ruin the country. The Minister must try to combine imaginatively the best of the public service and the best of the private sector. Unless we manage to do so, we will not achieve the job creation we need to get this country moving again. Instead, we will face a resumption of emigration and, in the word's of the Minister's father, we will send abroad people who are finely educated, but that will be their fate.

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