Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----but the order of the day now appears to be that everybody is mentioned, particularly people outside the House who have no possibility of answering any accusations.

The members of the Opposition seem to have forgotten one very important factor. One speaker, Deputy Shane Ross, correctly stated earlier that this Government inherited the most awful economic situation the country ever experienced. He went on to say that the Government was lucky. It was not lucky because every negative event that could have happened both within and outside this House happened. Challenges were a daily occurrence. In the first two years in government there was not a morning that a controversy did not come down the tracks. It was doom and gloom on issues such as whether the euro would collapse. The prophets of doom and gloom were saying we should have rejoined sterling. We were told repeatedly that the cause of our demise was the euro, and that we should have burned the bondholders. At that time, when we needed €16 billion that we did not have to spend on our public services, they said we should have burned the bondholders but we would not have been able to borrow any more money in the international markets and we could have starved.

What did we avert? From what did we save ourselves? From what did the people of this country save themselves? In the past four years the resilience of the people and the leadership of the Government averted disaster.

They averted a situation where salaries and wages across the public service would have been reduced by 65%. While it is correct that there were cuts all over the place which hurt a lot of people, it was not 65%. We were told we should emulate the Icelandic model, the Swedish model or the Finnish model. One would not see so many models in a fashion show. Then the Greek model was trotted out. There is not much talk about the Greek model now. They do not remind us too often now of its benefits. I presume they have forgotten it on the other side of the House. More important, there was talk of a second bailout in 2011-12 when the Government had been in office for barely a year. It was inevitable, we were told. The children of this nation were suffering and their children's children were going to suffer and there was nothing but oblivion in store. There was as black cloud over the nation that was never going to lift again. People were leaving the country in their hundreds of thousands. We were reminded of all this on a daily basis. I congratulate the Irish people for having the resilience to stand up to that barrage of negativity and the total lack of confidence in their ability to revive themselves and to rise up again. We were told on numerous occasions that we should spend more and spend our way out of the economic disaster. That was always the policy of Keynes and there were those on the other side of the House speaking about him as if he was a buddy of theirs with whom they were drinking in the pub every second night. They were wrong about that too. The policies followed by the Government, harsh as they may have been, brought results and saved the country the worst excesses of what could have happened. What we have to talk about and think about now as a people is how the worst was averted. All due credit goes to the people of this country and the Government for the leadership it gave. If there had not been leadership over the past four years, this country would have slid below the surface and not reappeared for many years.

One of the things that has been mentioned was the cyclical nature of development in the economy over the years. We have been told this is inevitable, but it is not. With proper forward planning, one can avert all these pitfalls or at least minimise them to a huge extent. If we look at the situation that faces us now, what are the basic items of infrastructure needed for a growing economy over the next 20 years? We need an adequate road structure. We need an adequate supply of water that is on tap at all times. That is needed to a much greater extent than was the case over the past 20 years. We need investment in urban and rural areas to have that supply. It is a taboo subject, however, because according to the Opposition no one wants to pay for water. They say we have the right to water. Of course, we have the right to water. Everybody has the right to water and can go to the river or the well and take it from there. That is what we did in this country for many centuries. However, we have a different situation now. There is a greater demand and a greater need for investment in basic water infrastructure. If we do not now provide the infrastructure required, we will have failed the next generation. To those who admonish us on a regular basis that we do not do in time the things we should, I ask what are we to do now? Do we succumb to the promises of the Opposition and spend more money on ourselves or do we spend it on infrastructure and provide for a long, ongoing and steady economic development in this country? Which do we choose? We have heard people call on the other side of the House for spending money we own in one of the major banks. We have 89% of the value of the bank. Implicit in that is to get our hand in the till and toss it out to people for whatever purpose. It is the craziest notion I have ever heard. I have never heard anything like it in my life and I am sure no one else in the House has either. What we must do now is be careful. We have dragged ourselves up albeit with huge sacrifices. Now that we have done so, let us take the next steps carefully. Let us make absolutely certain that we do not dump on ourselves again and walk ourselves into another cul-de-sac to find our way blocked again. The next part of that vital infrastructure is transport. That means rail, road, air, sea and bus to bring the people of the country closer together. We live in a global economy nowadays. Ireland is not the isolated place it used to be. We have access to modern transport and technology which we must use to the best of our ability to spread the economic benefits of good planning throughout the country for the foreseeable future. That can go on for up to 50 years with steady improvements and an absence of the cyclical downturns we have experienced in the past.

Another thing I am a bit worried about is the fact that some Opposition Members have become desperate. I can understand why. They must be very disappointed. Their predictions of just a few years ago have all fallen by the wayside. The Government must continue along the same road for the next couple of years. It must be prudent and careful in what it does, encourage investment and encourage employment. Unfortunately, the prophets of doom will be out of business. What will they be able to say to the community? They will have to say "Actually, we were wrong". They are going to change their tack to something else, obviously, and try to find another scapegoat in order to further their own ambition. That is a political ambition that has nothing to do with reality. I mention in particular some other things that have been trotted out over the past number of days in relation to the ailments and ills of our economy. When the people on this side of the House were in opposition, we were ironically blamed for some of the things that happened despite the fact that the then-Opposition was excluded until the last minute phone call at 7 a.m. to say: "The country is broke, we have a very serious problem and now have to call in the Opposition." That is how much notice we got. People have forgotten that. There is no more reference to it on that side of the House.

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