Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

People listening to the contributions from the other side of the House would be forgiven for thinking they were living in a different country than the rest of us. While the arguments may be interesting political fodder, they do nothing for reasoned and enlightened debate in regard to how we manage our economy.

The Labour Party presided over probably the biggest dereliction of any Government in the history of this State and one would need to travel far to find a government which emulated the level of irresponsibility of Dr. Garret FitzGerald's Government from 1982 to 1987. Fine Gael would proffer the excuse that its attachment to the Labour Party forced him into a position whereby the Government had to take unwise economic decisions.