Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this important debate and I thank my colleague, Deputy Calleary, on having the foresight to bring the matter to the House.

It is clear raising this issue has started to ruffle the feathers of some of those on the Labour Party backbenches. I had the benefit of hearing what Deputy Nash had to say before I left my office. I was a little disappointed by what he had to say, because I have quite a lot of regard for him and he usually makes a valuable contribution. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and put what he had to say down to Labour Party central issuing the first page of its defensive bible, which clearly is on the lines of suggesting its backbenchers should look at the guys in opposition and blame them and that will resolve all the problems.

Whether Deputy Nash or Labour Party central like it or not, we are elected to do a job. Whatever about holding the Government to account, with the limited numbers we have, we will contribute to the best of our ability and will bring forward ideas as best we can. I advise Deputy Nash and other backbenchers who are of the view that it is an appropriate defence to continue to kick Fianna Fáil and blame other parties for the state of the economy, to go back over some of the missives issued by their own parties over the past ten to 15 years. They need not go to their election material, but just to their regular press releases and commentary on the budget. I have seen very little over the course of that time that leads me to believe they would have done things dramatically differently. If we all accept we are in the position we are in and work to try to resolve it, it will provide for a far better and more appropriate level of debate in the Chamber, rather than continuing to denigrate the views of people on this side of the House because of issues in the past.

I listened to my good friend, colleague and neighbour, Deputy McNamara, who took us on a tour of the world that would make Kathryn Thomas of "No Frontiers" proud he covered so much.

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