Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

The farmers were, of course, involved. At the time the Minister of State, Deputy Parlon, was a rising star in the IFA, as he is now in his new role. Everybody pulled together and the economy was saved. We continued and are now into our sixth programme. Senator Higgins's party was involved in one of them when Deputy John Bruton was Taoiseach. They continued with a spirit of co-operation and compromise and a determination that the economy would perform strongly within Europe.

As a Minister, when I was in Brussels speaking to Ministers from other countries, I was asked how Ireland, as a small open economy trading globally, had managed for more than a decade to sustain very strong economic growth. We continue to have strong economic growth, although at a much lower and realistic level. Although, unfortunately, unemployment is increasing, we continue to have high employment, the best in Europe. We have the highest economic and employment growth. Even though three EU countries are not in the euro zone, our rate of inflation, nearly the highest in that zone, is too high. In many cases high employment and growth bring in their wake the kind of inflation we are now experiencing. The mission now is to reduce inflation to a much more realistic level and at the same time maintain good economic and employment growth. Although not always the case, inflation is often a by-product of high growth and employment. Sustaining Progress will seek to align all these matters in so far as it can be done.

This is a very worthy document. During the years some partnership agreements have been good while others have not been so good. For 16 years there has been strong agreement between all the parties. This agreement is interesting because it deals with affordable housing, which is a very important element in the programme. I am very interested in the verification process and the performance verification groups for each sector in the Civil Service – the health sector, local government, education, etc. Rigorous parameters have been put in place, as have reporting methods for each group. It will be the responsibility of the Secretary General of each Department to claim ownership of this and to work it through to verifiable authentication of its work. That is extremely positive.

There have been industrial relations tensions among various groups along the way, but no one was promised Tír na nÓg on entry into these agreements. People had their eyes open going into the agreements, which sought to make the country fairer for employer and employee, for the agricultural community, for disadvantaged groups and so on. We sought to bring all those groups together in a binding social contract.

When one tells this story to people from other countries they are astounded that we have had agreements for this length of time – 16 years – under various Governments and that we have managed the economy to a particular level by having such a social contract. There are those who wish to throw this to one side and let free market forces prevail to see how matters develop, We would do badly in that situation because we would not have the confidence in ourselves that this programme provides.