Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I thank the Cathaoirleach.

There are a couple of things to be said about emigration from Ireland. It was perhaps the greatest generator of excuses for failure that this country ever had. It was a failure that for most of the last 80 years, until about 20 years ago, we collectively tried to excuse and that was not confined to one particular political party. We collectively grabbed on to excuses for our failure. When Professor Joe Lee produced his book, Ireland 1912-1985: Politics and Society, and did a magnificent job of looking at our collective excuses and demolishing them, for instance, our excuse that we were peripheral and then pointing out the position of Finland——