Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

I have been in the House for quite some time and I have listened to various speeches on various occasions in good times and in bad. One word was missing from yesterday's speech by the Minister for Finance and this morning's speech by the Taoiseach. It is a simple Anglo-Saxon word and it is the word "sorry". Not once has Fianna Fáil said to itself, to the nation or to the Members of this House, "Sorry, we screwed up". They do not do apologies in Fianna Fáil but if they did it would be a start. Yes, we have screwed up. Yes, this country has screwed up and some people are more responsible for it than others. The start of a recovery that would embrace the principles of citizenship, to which my friend and colleague, Deputy Michael D. Higgins referred and which was once a mantra for the former Taoiseach, would be fixed

We will get out of this crisis. We will not get out of it the way the Labour Party wants to get out of it. We will not get out of it as quickly as Fianna Fáil thinks we will get out of it. We will carry for the rest of their lives people who will be the walking wounded because of the damage done to them. I am thinking in particular of the type of person referred to by Deputy Eamon Gilmore, such as a person who, because of a broken home, is looking for a second chance at education in a Youthreach programme. That will now be denied. All of the research shows that such a person will cost the Government, me and the taxpayer far more money when he or she ends up in prison than the miserable amount of saving that cutting the Youthreach programme will achieve. This is not even to count in the cost of the damage to such people, their partners and perhaps to their children.

International surveys show that equal societies are fairer societies.

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