Shane Ross (Independent)

I have more than doubts about this document. I recognise that when a debate of this sort happens in this House, people take the opportunity to speak about anything they feel like. It is a very wide-ranging debate with very few interruptions from the Chair regarding relevance, simply because this document is so all-embracing that one can speak virtually on any issue affecting the public finances or public policy.

What does that tell us about the document? It tells me that it is a document which could be an election manifesto, an agreement or programme for Government or just a pay deal, which is the bones of it. However, it is a pay deal with an awful lot of cosmetic and aspirational dressing around it. It tells me that the governance of this country is not taking place in this building and that power rests elsewhere. I regret very much the readiness of all parties in this House to take so much dictatorship of policy, principally from the trade union movement but also from others whom they so benignly call the social partners.

This is, I think, the fifth document of its sort—