Joe McHugh (Fine Gael)

I wish to point out a number of things to Senator Ross who said that we have nothing to offer. We have been pushing for value for money in regard to public expenditure. The man and woman in the street knows that public money is squandered and wasted. The Senator knows there is waste and I challenge him to contradict me on that.

In regard to what we have to offer, we need a quality product if we are to promote Ireland as a tourism destination. We will have to advertise Ireland and give incentives to people setting up tourism businesses. We will have to give tax reductions and offer people incentives to remain in business. People are going out of business. People in the tourism sector in Donegal this year are saying, "To hell with it, costs and insurance are too high." That is a problem. In order to remain competitive we need quality business in the tourism sector.

I remind Senator Ross, who seems to have put himself forward as a Government spokesperson, that we have also pushed for radical reform in the education curriculum. To have a complete, radical overhaul, we must invest in research and development and examine the entire curriculum. In Romania and Hungary, children of 12 and 13 years of age are being sent to college to do degrees in car mechanics. What are we doing about encouraging young people to get degrees in car mechanics? We are pushing young people into academia and are not emphasising the practical side of things. What we have are young people who are thrown out of school early at 15 or 16 and enrolled in FÁS courses on car mechanics. That is an insult to the car mechanic sector in this country.

In regard to benchmarking for nurses and teachers, I am proud to push for the increases these neglected groups deserve and take exception to some of the remarks made earlier. My stand today represents the views I have heard on the streets in regard to this Government's actions. What happened under the rainbow coalition is history and what happened under the last Government has also been consigned to the past. We must live in the present and get out of the hole in which we find ourselves. We have to move forward.