Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It should be recognised that the promissory note and what went before it represent one of the greatest injustices perpetrated on the people. It is rather sad that this injustice was perpetrated when our own Government was in charge. It was not perpetrated by some coloniser from elsewhere.

I hope the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, will forgive me for saying this, but a year ago I ran into him in the corridor. He had a smile on his face and I asked him why he was smiling. He commented that for the first time he believed we would get a deal on our debt and that they would sort out the euro. What happened last week was a demonstration that his hopes were delivered and, for our sake, it is more than welcome that this occurred. Great credit should be given to the Ministers concerned, that is, the four Ministers of the Economic Management Council, the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. The fact that Mario Draghi was asked about this issue and stated that the members of the ECB unanimously noted the decision of the Irish Government was an indication that it was something especially for us. It was also an indication of the vast amount of work that had to be done to secure the arrangement.

How should we progress from here? This has been such a traumatic thing for us and there are lessons we must learn. Among these lessons are the following. We need to shed our obsession with property and build only what we actually need as opposed to investing blindly in property. We need to take a different view of the zoning of land and only zone what we require for industrial and residential purposes rather than the lunacy which went on during the Celtic tiger years. We need to invest our resources in terms of land, labour and capital into sustainable, long-term, job-creating industries rather than simply building houses, hotels and apartment blocks. We need to ensure we never allow the State become too reliant on the tax revenue from any one particular sector of the economy, such as happened with the building boom. We need to provide infrastructure for what is actually required. We need to be prudent with our finances, public and private, and we need to limit the racking up of personal debt through credit cards and other financial instruments. We need to change our political culture in order that there is greater focus on the long term rather than the short term. Finally, and above all, we need to ensure that our banks and lending institutions are properly regulated. If we learn these lessons we will be in a better place but in the meantime there is no doubt that while we made giant strides forward last week there is a great deal more to be done. The Government is absolutely determined to do what needs to be done and to dig the country out of the hole it is in.

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