Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

The Deputy must also accept responsibility and should send for his former colleagues, ring or text them to hear the other side of the story. Let us see what he has to say about this. Since members of the main Opposition party are not present, on their behalf, we should echo an apology to the people for what they did. The people will pay for an awful long time to come.

Do people remember what the previous Government did? There has been much talk about child benefit. It is appalling that we have to do what we must do. What did it do? In 2002 it sent a letter and a cheque to every mother of every child in the country for up to €1,000, €2,000 in some cases, in respect of an increase in benefit one week before the general election. I can only think it was naivety on the part of the governing party which did not think it would have any effect on the election results. In 2007 it had another go. It was the general election of 2002 which broke the country because it was calculated to secure an overall majority for Fianna Fáil which is what it wanted at the time. If Fianna Fáil had got that, it would have treated the people to something else afterwards. Anyway, what the party did then was to run further before the storm, spending more money, saying it was a great thing and that Fianna Fáil was magic, that it knew how do to it. Well, that was not the case and it was only when Mr. Chopra arrived and looked at the accounts that he asked what was this off balance sheet recording of debt. It was apparently accepted practice in the past but he said no, we could not have that anymore. Reality dawned.

I compliment the former Minister for Finance, the late Brian Lenihan. He took very courageous decisions. I do not know how much support he got from his colleagues but he took those decisions because he realised the reality. Reality is what we face now, and more of it, and it will take another four or five years before we work our way out of it. It will mean everything going right and there will be occasions between now and the end of the four or five year period when we must revise and review again and again, much in the same way President Roosevelt did in the USA in the 1930s, where again and again he had to explain to the people what the problem was and that he understood what was happening and was trying to help.

John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath, and we hear a lot of expressions about anger and all the angry people out there; there are many people in Government angry about having to face what we face now. He called it The Grapes of Wrath; he could have called it The Fruits of Anger but anger does not put bread on the table. It never did and it never will. I would hope there would be a realisation on the part of the main party in Opposition that what it did to this country is appalling and that it should accept responsibility for it so we could move forward together in the clear knowledge we are going in the right direction.

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