Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

This is an important debate. I incline towards the view that we cannot afford to show any complacency. We are in the euro system and that means we do not have the option of a depreciating currency to restore competitiveness. If one takes the perspective of the past 17 years, to quote the IMF report this week, the social partnership process has made an important contribution to Ireland's exceptional economic revival.

We cannot be doing everything wrong given that employment is rising. Inflation has been brought back to the European average. I recently came across a competitiveness table in a German magazine which gives the success index of the Bertelsmann Foundation for economies in 21 industrial countries investigated for 2004. It refers to index points for economic development and economic policy, and Ireland is top of the list, followed by the United States of America and then Norway. I am afraid France and Germany are at the bottom of the list.