Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

This country is in a serious deficit. Let us suppose one wishes to borrow to bridge the gap between what one is spending and getting in. One cannot borrow from people if one tells them one will not pay their money back, which seems to be what Deputy Higgins is advancing. He asked me the purpose of the Labour Party so let me tell him the purpose. The purpose is to solve the economic mess we have inherited, to get the country out of the economic hole in which we found it last March, to get people back to work and to build a better and fairer society.

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