Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)

Earlier today, Deputy Joan Burton stated the following:

Today, we have been given more bad news about the two institutions to which I refer. The Financial Times states that the cost in respect of Anglo Irish Bank will be €35 billion and €5 billion for the tiny building society that is known as Irish Nationwide.

That is the pass to which the Minister and his leader, the Taoiseach, have brought this country. Today is black Thursday and the Minister and his party, Fianna Fáil, will be remembered for visiting it upon this country.

I am an optimistic person by nature. I came into this House in 2007 as an Opposition Deputy. When my party, the Labour Party, is elected to govern this country, how will we get it out of the economic maelstrom in which we find ourselves? To say it will be a Herculean task is to put it mildly.

I listened intently to the contributions from the Fianna Fáil side of the House, which looked backwards in their analysis of the situation. They do not give me grounds for optimism. It was especially disheartening to hear someone of my own generation, Deputy Thomas Byrne, seeking to undermine the Labour Party as part of his contribution to a debate on the financial institutions as they are now. When the Deputy referred to Labour's 2007 manifesto and the promises or aspirations contained therein, he neglected to mention that those promises and aspirations were based on figures that were then in the public domain. The figures to which I refer were provided by the Department of Finance and the plans in the manifesto were costed in respect of the economic climate that obtained at that time. It is not credible for a member of Fianna Fáil to attack the Labour Party for what has happened in the past two years, even if doing so is part of some defence mechanism.

I have stated publicly on previous occasions that I have a great regard for the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, particularly in the context of the depth of knowledge he possesses and the values he espouses. However, the Minister of State indicated earlier that because Madame Christine Lagarde has bestowed her imprimatur on the strategy that has been adopted, this is somehow a justification-----

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