Charlie McCreevy (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

There are people who have difficulty with the process, but most people did not speak up. I do not remember anyone in this House speaking up against the concept at the time. If they did, it escaped me. There was the odd commentator outside who had difficulty with the concept, but there was no one inside the Houses of the Oireachtas. Now, following the report, for some reason some media commentators are going off at a tangent wanting us to break the deal. It is all right for a private sector employer to say that he or she will not honour a deal, but a Government cannot do that without very good reason because the whole basis of dealing with the Government would fall into disrepute and no group would ever make a deal with it again. One could never get a deal if the Government walked away from the report of an independent body to which it was party.

As Senator O'Toole has pointed out, we have fought right through the whole process of the agreements and the negotiations have been very tough. However, following the result of an agreed process which has been carried out independently, even if one does not like it, no sane Government can walk away, nor should it. What reason would one have? The measurements of those people's salaries were in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002, and that was done independently. There is a separate question about how public services should be paid for and so on, but surely all right thinking people would agree that what was signed up to and agreed must be honoured.