Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

It presents the Government with an opportunity not only to set the record straight but to reaffirm our commitment to recovery. The recovery we have in mind is not a short-term opinion poll recovery but real and lasting economic recovery about which the Irish people will pass judgment in the only poll that counts in two years.

The people know Ireland is on the correct path but they also know we have some distance to travel. To make the journey safely, the country needs a steady, determined and calm hand on the tiller. If events over the past number of days have crystallised anything for the people, it is that the leadership necessary for a nation in difficult times is available only on this side of the House. This Government can take the heat, hold firm in its course and will not lose its nerve as there is simply too much at stake.

Our debate this afternoon, which should have been on the merits of the reports, has been personalised to one of confidence in the man who over the past two years as Taoiseach has skilfully led Ireland through one of the most difficult and challenging periods in our post-independence history. The capacity of any Taoiseach to lead a team of Ministers, particularly a team formed from a coalition of political parties, and through that team lead the nation, is best tested during a period of significant challenge where difficult choices must be made. The leadership capacity demonstrated by Deputy Brian Cowen in this regard over the past two years is without precedent. It is evident in his ability to understand the silent majority and appreciate the importance in leadership of bringing the people with him to achieve enduring change and progress.

Deputy Cowen has mapped a course for this country that will not just see it recover from current challenges but see it achieve long-term and sustainable growth. The actions taken to stabilise our public finances, restore our competitiveness, rebuild our tax base and repair our banks, run in parallel with the strategic vision for the development of a smart economy investing in critical infrastructure, job creation and the productive sector, have been prioritised. In the past week crucial progress has been achieved in the reform of the public sector.

The leadership demonstrated by Deputy Brian Cowen and this Government on these critical decisions received only hollow support when it suited from the main party opposite and even less from its would-be partners in any alternative government. No Government can expect the Opposition to be cheerleaders on its behalf but there are times when the national interest must be put above political interest. If, at such times, a proposed course of action by a Government is not to be supported, the minimum the public deserves to know is the alternative Opposition course of action. At such critical times a simple cry of "We would not start from here" does not hold up to scrutiny as it offers no solution.

Leadership is about being honest with the public and setting out a position. Today, nothing but the question of leadership is on the minds of the Deputies directly opposite in the blue corner. The issue of leadership and a cohesive policy position is so lacking from the red corner that neither the Irish public nor the rest of us in Dáil Éireann knows where that party stands in a spectrum of issues. The most prominent recent example has been the party's position on the Croke Park deal but even in my own new portfolio dealing with education there appears to be a complete divergence of opinion emanating from within the party on issues of significant importance to the future direction of education policy.

The disingenuous nature of Opposition contributions this afternoon are no surprise as they reinterpret the words and sense of the banking reports to suit their political target of the day. There has been no scrutiny of their own policies or words during that period. We know there are significant lessons for us all to be learned from the course taken by our domestic banking sector over the past decade.

Support of the economic consensus and orthodoxy of the day was either explicit or implicit across all parties of the House and the proof of this was in the election manifestos. It exists in many of the statements on the record of this House, calling for more homes to be constructed, more stamp duty relief for home buyers and for more spending on each area across the remit of the Government.

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