John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the legislation, as did most of the previous speakers. The FEMPI Acts were introduced during a time of economic crisis to try to deal with some of the crises as they emerged. It is right and fitting that this Bill, the first piece of rowing back on some of those harsh adjustments, would take place now. There have been five or six FEMPI Acts during the emergency period. As a result of the public service pay talks which concluded earlier this year, a series of proposals were put forward which led to the Lansdowne Road agreement, which is the main reason we are discussing the Bill. I welcome the pay restoration proposals for reducing the pension levy on former public servants, which was an especially draconian measure. Some people who had been retired for many years and had an expectation of an income into the future were severely adversely affected. This was the situation in which the country found itself.

I was alarmed by the comments of the previous speaker, Deputy Keaveney, who has left. He said the primary debate in the next Dáil should not be on the economy and taxation. Fianna Fáil has learned nothing if it believes the primary debate in the next Dáil should not be about the economy and taxation. The economy should always be part of the primary discussion that takes place here and everywhere else. The improvement in public services about which he spoke is contingent on having an economy that works and not one that has been driven over the cliff, as it was by his new party.

I have not spoken previously about his position, but I find it interesting that he seems to come in here whenever he contributes to a debate to lash the Labour Party. I am no particular lover of the Labour Party, but it took an extraordinary neck for the Deputy in question to spend 15 minutes speaking in the Chamber in condemnation of the FEMPI legislation given that virtually all of it was introduced by the party to which he now belongs. It took an extreme degree of ignorance for him to have a go at the reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio. Obviously, he does not know the difference between a reduction and an increase in the ratio. The pupil-teacher ratio was increased some years ago by his friends in Fianna Fáil, but it was reduced in the recent budget. Perhaps Deputy Keaveney could go back to school to learn that this was a positive move. Rather incongruously, the Deputy had the cheek to speak about the public service recruitment moratorium. He might have missed the life of the last Oireachtas - maybe he was having debates about things other than taxation and the economy at the time - so I will remind him that the moratorium was introduced by his colleagues in the party of which he is now a member. Who knows for how long he will be a member of that party? He is entitled to join whatever party will have him. They are welcome to him, particularly in light of his contribution this evening and on previous occasions.

My primary reason for speaking on this legislation was not to get annoyed with Deputy Keaveney; it was to welcome the fact that the Government is in a position to start rectifying some of the draconian measures that were necessary in recent years. The measures in question imposed a great deal of hardship on serving and retired public servants and people who might have found themselves in public service positions if the economy had not gone off the cliff. Of course Deputy Keaveney does not want to talk about the economy. Obviously, I am a public servant. In a previous life, I was a maths teacher. A great deal of younger teachers, in particular, find themselves in temporary and part-time positions. I refer to people who are younger than me. I am getting old. I am positively middle-aged at this stage.

Many younger teachers, like their colleagues in other walks of life, are not in the country any more precisely because Fianna Fáil and its friends decided not to talk about the economy during the Celtic tiger period. They did not reflect on the fact that the economy was built on sand. I suppose I agree with Deputy Keaveney in one respect, which is that debates on public services should be held in conjunction with debates on the economy. It seems to me, in light of what has happened in this country over the past decade, that the suggestion by a Member of this House that we should not be having debates on the economy and on taxation is living proof that the party to which the Member in question now belongs has not learned one thing from the hardship it has caused for public servants and private sector workers here and for thousands of people who live in all parts of the world as a result of the mess that party made of our economy.

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