Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

Ministers have made mistakes since the State was founded. They have taken decisions that have hurt ordinary people ever since Earnán de Blaghad cut the old age pension by a half crown. However, nothing has ever been visited on our people on the scale of the devastation inflicted on them by the legacy of the Fianna Fáil-led Governments of the noughties.

The Government inherited an economy in 1997 that was growing employment at a rate of 55,000 per annum, being managed to live within its means and producing consistent improvements in social provision. Fianna Fáil has brought it all crashing down. They have given us the highest jobless figures in Europe, a reduction in living standards for most of our people, including those dependent on social benefits, and educated young people waiting for emigration opportunities to get out of the country. Worst of all, they have deprived the people of hope. The Taoiseach has lost his confidence and his style of leadership is spreading pessimism like contagion.

There has been only one Government in this country during all of the years when our problems accumulated. At any point, that was a Fianna Fáil-led Government. The Opposition is not responsible for the disaster that has befallen us. Nor are our people responsible for the worst recession in living memory, even if the new mantra is that we all lost the run of ourselves. We did not all lose the run of ourselves but it is clear that the revellers in the Galway tent lost the run of themselves, and now ordinary people must pay for their excesses. When the crash came, the message that flashed on Fianna Fáil BlackBerrys was, "Blame the global crisis and keep mentioning Lehman brothers". The independent reports on the collapse of the banks have put an end to that mantra. The Lehman brothers did not cause our crash. The main agent of our economic downfall was the grossly irresponsible mismanagement of our economy by Fianna Fáil.

Now we have a new mantra, best expressed by the Minister for Transport, Deputy Noel Dempsey. He said Deputy Brian Cowen may have led us into the crash but he is also leading us out of it. Disaffected backbenchers express it slightly differently. They say, "Look how Brian Lenihan is getting the public finances under control". It never seems to occur to Fianna Fáil spokespersons when they praise Deputy Brian Lenihan for the skill with which he is driving the fire brigade through the crowded streets of this country, that he is heading to put out a fire that was started and fuelled by Deputy Brian Cowen. We are supposed to marvel at the driving skills of Deputy Brian Lenihan.

The major parties in this House, unprecedentedly, supported the Minister for Finance in taking €4 billion out of public spending in the last budget, even if we differed as to how it should be done. There is no escaping the fact that Fianna Fáil-led Governments have brought us to the edge of ruin. They did it because of cronyism, because of their addiction to the insider nod and wink culture, because of their unhealthily close links to builders and developers and because of laziness. I take no pleasure in saying that the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, did not use his undoubted talents to monitor, supervise, interrogate, question, intervene and direct. He surfed on the tide of property taxes and unthinkingly thought it would go on forever. There is no point in trying to rewrite the banking reports - they could scarcely be more critical of the irresponsibility and inaction of the Government. The failure of the regulatory system was total and seemed to have official acquiescence.

Before I conclude, I would like to recall the time when the late Séamus Brennan was sent out, three days before his party's Ard-Fheis, to tell the public that Fianna Fáil did not intend to engage in auction politics. Three days later, the then Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, made a speech to the Ard-Fheis that left the assembled masses dumbfounded. I would like to quote from a book, "Showtime", by the political correspondent, Mr. Pat Leahy.

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