David Norris (Independent)

I am grateful to my colleagues for sharing time with me. I am at a disadvantage when I find myself agreeing with Senators Quinn and Ross, as I like to disagree with them to make things more exciting. I particularly agree with the Senators' support for the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, and their criticism of the Opposition. I admire my great friend, Senator Higgins, as a superb speaker, but I was rather taken aback when I heard him say he was delighted that the Government's chickens were coming home to roost. I do not think I would like to adopt such an attitude in terms of the national interest. If chickens are coming home to roost, I greatly regret it. We should make sure, as far as possible, that it does not happen. We should stick together and abandon the auction politics that was prevalent across the political spectrum during the last general election campaign.

The Government is not the only element of the State's political life that was involved. I listened to "Tonight with Vincent Browne" last night. The presenter could not extract a single public acknowledgement of a cut from any contributor to the programme, including representatives of Fine Gael and Sinn Féin.