Michael Kennedy (Dublin North, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this debate. When we received the final bill for our bank bailout last Thursday, I was reminded of a sick person getting a doctor's diagnosis and being told about the medicines required for a protracted recovery. The patient wondering how he picked up the illness in the first place is now longer the issue. The reality is that, like the patient, we as a country must worry about how we are to be treated and when we will recover. Dwelling on the history of how the problem arose will not do anything to resolve it.

Like everybody else in this Chamber, I deplore the reckless lending practices of our banks, the greed of some developers and the ineptitude of our bank regulators. Equally, however, we should all be big enough to admit that successive Governments made mistakes in promoting taxes which were based on the sale of houses. I hope the Opposition parties will acknowledge their demands in successive budgets for greater spending by the Government. Hindsight is wonderful. None of us would make mistakes if we could turn the clock back but the blame game will not get us anywhere and will not solve our problems. I think it is time to move on - I was disappointed by Deputy English's contribution - and to seek solutions to the country's problems. It is essential that all parties put forward their views and policies to deal with this crisis.

I welcome the editorials in some broadsheets over last weekend. Saturday's editorial in the Irish Independent was entitled "Time for unity not for petty squabbling". I certainly subscribe to that view. The Sunday Independent stated that " all parties must put the nation first" and I believe that is what is needed. In Saturday's edition of The Irish Times, Stephen Collins had an article entitled " Four year plan an opportunity to cough up the truth". I agree with that as well.

Whether one believes a new Tallaght strategy is the best option or whether one considers a general election more desirable, I feel that all parties must move on from the accusations and deliberate misinformation which is only causing further confusion and frustration among the general public. We need action not anger and as the Minister said recently, anger is not a policy.

It has annoyed me to hear on our airwaves economists offering contradictory opinions on Government strategy. The Irish Independent editorial last Saturday put it aptly when it described these commentators as "celebrity economists", some of whom suggested we leave the eurozone and act like Iceland in reneging on our sovereign debt. Iceland today pays an 18% interest rate for its mortgages, compared to our mortgage rate of 4.5-5 %. If we asked any Irish person with a house loan which rate they would prefer, I doubt they would choose the Icelandic rate. Many of us will remember paying 18% and more in the 1970s and 1980s for our home loans when Ireland was outside of the eurozone and tied to sterling. It was painful to pay 18% and we need to maintain ourselves in a stable currency and be part of the eurozone.

Time and again we have heard from these same commentators that the Government should have reneged on Anglo Irish Bank bondholders. They never admitted that most of the €80 billion deposited with the bank in September 2008 was owned by Irish credit unions, Irish pension funds, local authorities and by Irish small and medium business people. These commentators and some politicians are still saying that the money deposited by ordinary Irish people should have been let go down the Swanee. There would be a bigger public outcry from old age pensioners and small businesses if their savings were lost. At least we can pay off the Anglo Irish Bank loans over a period of time, but with a positive approach, we will deal with them.

It is time to acknowledge that Deputy Brian Lenihan, as Minister for Finance, has at all times spoken in a truthful honest, rational and realistic manner about our banking and economic issues, when compared to those economic commentators which the Irish Independent described as "deficient" in their grasp of the country's economic problems and sovereign responsibilities. It is time to concentrate on seeking viable solutions and to remind ourselves that we overcame the deep recession in the 1970s and 1980s by taking positive action, not by engaging in perpetual moaning. We need to reflect on what changed the Irish people in the 1990s to become a confident, proud, modern and progressive nation compared to our previous insular and inward world view. l suggest it happened by adopting a positive attitude and I believe we can achieve greatness again by adopting such attitudes.

Let us look at the German people and see how they recovered from the defeat of two world wars to build themselves up to be the strongest nation in Europe, with the strongest economy and the most competitive manufacturing industries. We can build on our educated young work force to produce export orders, to increase our agricultural output and build on our tourist business.

We have the opportunity now to move on in a positive way to deal with our problems. We have a duty to show the way forward in an honest and constructive manner and to put our country first. I want to acknowledge the comments of some Fine Gael Senators in the Seanad last week. They were positive and they recognised that whoever is in government, constructive comments should be made. This is putting the country first. Even if a second Tallaght strategy does not emerge, Members should not be taking cheap political pot shots. We have had two years of that and it is time we moved on, grew up and recognised that we have major problems, so that we can deal with them constructively. It is not surprising that people will not spend when all they hear is this constant gloom and doom. They read about it in the newspapers, they see it on their television screens and they hear it on their radios. Much of it is perpetuated in this House. It may have been okay years ago when the country did not have the same economic problems but we must recognise that spewing out gloom and doom day in, day out is doing nothing for the country.

In regard to the four-year strategy the Government will bring out in November and on which I sincerely hope the other parties are working, each party needs to demonstrate, as the Government will, how it plans to cut our budget deficit to meet the EU requirement of 3% by 2014. They need to explain how the current budget deficit of €19 billion will be resolved in the coming years because as long as our tax intake is €19 billion or €20 billion less than our spend of €50 billion, we will have a deficit problem with which to deal.

We need to hear from all the political parties, including my party, how we will deal with taxation issues, a reduction in services, the public sector and the Croke Park agreement, on which a number of parties had no comment good, bad or indifferent. The public expects to hear how each party proposes to deal with our unemployment figures and not just the theory that 100,000 jobs will be created under the NewERA plan or something else. We need to be specific, which is what the people expect of us.

We need to show the people our manufacturing industry has the ability to increase growth in exports. It is worth noting that our exports are now at 2007 levels which is quite remarkable given the world recession, not to mention our recessionary problems. We need to hear from each party how they will grow our economy. Our overall economic problems would be fixed by a combination of tax, cuts and boosting growth in our economy.

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