Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

What brass neck - I have seen brass neck in this House over the past 20 years but this is something. The objective of the Croke Park agreement and all the measures we have taken, including not resiling from the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Acts that the previous Government put in place is to restore economic solvency of our State. Deputy Fleming and his party broke that. I am glad that the arbiters of the Croke Park agreement are not Deputy Fleming and his party but those were party to the agreement.

I met the implementation body, the unions and employers organisations and, unlike the Deputy opposite, they have an understanding of where the nation is and what needs to be done. Our objective is to take the painful path for all people in the State to restore our economic sovereignty, to ensure there is a public service and that pay slips and money are available to maintain the public service into the future. We will do that. We inherited a broken, damaged economy but we will restore it. We are already taking steps to do so as the review by the troika indicated today. We will not be lectured about what we need to do by the people who were party to the damage done to our economy.

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