Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

The Deputy and his party understood the concept of what I am talking about when they were in government, but they seem to have forgotten it purely for simplistic, populist reasons. As a group that considers itself a serious Opposition party, perhaps it should defend policies that it claims were its own when it was in government, although our implementation of those policies is substantially different. We are more focussed on how it affects people, and that is the way it should be. Much of what was done by the previous Government was done in a rushed manner. Much of what happened after the IMF came in was bounced on that Government to some degree, and some of the decisions it made were wrong and perhaps were not proofed to protect the Irish people as they should have been. We have managed to make that shift to protect the Irish people more. I would like to see the Deputy and his party support those moves. We are more realistic about what can be achieved for the people in this terrible crisis.

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