Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Anybody listening to that speech who was not acquainted with the true facts of what is happening in our country would assume we had a balance of payments in surplus, full employment and that we were leaders on a world scale.

The Taoiseach has not been straight with the people. He started off this morning by saying it is important to be straight with people. The Taoiseach was not straight in terms of the fundamental question about banks when he was asked if Anglo Irish Bank was a question of liquidity or solvency. He said liquidity, and his Minister for Finance said that also, but that was not the case. He was not straight with the people when he said that the ECB and the IMF were at our shores to take away our economic sovereignty, cast away by his party, the great Republican party, after all these years. He has not been straight with the people in telling them about what he calls employment stabilisation. That is the new term for emigration, and our people are in Canada, America, Australia and every other country. They are going, going, going, as the poet said, and we cannot bid them stay. That is because of the direct failure of the Taoiseach's Government and his inability to deal with the problems of our country or to face the crises he has let develop over the years. If anything is eating away at the internal dynamics of this Government it is the Taoiseach's own failures and his lack of recognition of those failures in the past number of years.

The Taoiseach said this morning that he cast doubt on Fine Gael's numbers and that they did not add up.

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