Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Parlon, to the House. I was interested in what Senator Higgins said. He started by welcoming the plan and called it crisp, concise and challenging, which are all lovely alliterative words and made good listening. Where the Senator disagreed with the plan, it was not crisp, concise and challenging, but all sorts of other things. While the Senator is entitled to his point of view, he is not entitled to two points of view on one topic.

I very much welcome the report. Of course individual Ministers rushed out to protect their bailiwicks and went on to the battlements, which is understandable as they are worried about their future funding and how their projects proceed. The Government was right to obtain this report, the Mid-Term Evaluation of the National Development Plan and Community Support Framework for Ireland, 2000-2006. The report is quite challenging, to use one of the words used by Senator Higgins. It points out what worked, where the fault lines are and what can be done to rectify these.

Let us look at the overall project and the mood of optimism we should have about where Ireland is and was, particularly in 1999 when domestic funds financed this programme. A few years previously, we would not have had a chance to embark on such a programme as we would not have had the finance and were very appreciative to Europe of what it gave us for our plans in other years. It is good to be able to stand on our own feet. It was good that the country was doing so well that it could embark on such projects and have the money to finance them. In itself, that is an indication of the economic prosperity of the country.

To quote Senator Ross the figures released yesterday and reported this morning on this are good and better than we expected. The "steady as she goes" approach will bring us around the corner and on to sunnier slopes again. I am engaging in alliteration, having complained about it earlier.