Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

What we must not do in the House as we have these discussions as constructively as possible, recognising our political differences, is to generate a mantra of negativity about the economy, which does not give any credit to the strengths of our economy. The fact that we have a foreign direct investment profile in Ireland, which is greater than all US investment in China, is not often acknowledged or recognised. The investment is 80 times what it is in Greece and 23 times what it is in Portugal. These are important strengths that the Irish economy needs to use as a platform for generating confidence.

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