Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The problem with the Deputy is that he wants to declare year zero, as Pol Pot did, so that everything that happened before his party left office, having wrecked the economy, will be forgotten. That is not going to happen. We are setting out the record as it is. We are working incrementally to fix things. I have set out the three strands of the economic policy we will deliver. The first phase of the stimulus programme which is part of that policy will create 13,000 jobs. We are still negotiating other elements of it. We will address strategic infrastructure and meet the requirements of the programme for Government by rolling out a different health strategy for this country, meeting the demographic demand in education, providing the Grangegorman facilities and doing all the other things that were set out in the first phase of our stimulus plan.

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