Liam Fitzgerald (Fianna Fail)

I take back my comments. Successive Governments have made significant advances in the manner in which spending is managed. I do not cite any particular Administration in that regard. As I listened to remarks about rates of spending, I cast my mind back to the 1980s when I had to chair a sub-committee on cost overruns in the public service. At the time, cost overruns involved multiples rather than percentages of original estimates. I remember a Fine Gael representative, who remains a very prominent Member of the Dáil, and members of my own party pushing the idea at the time of multi-annual capital envelopes to which the Minister of State referred today. The issue surfaced in the 1980s, continued to be considered in the 1990s and now constitutes a central element of Government policy and planning. I welcome multi-annual capital envelopes as an important development in the context of control mechanisms and improved planning, co-ordination and ongoing action.

Many of the decisions of the current and previous Ministers for Finance have had positive effects in the management of success and bode well for future generations. The national pensions fund was an excellent initiative and I have referred to it as such a number of times in the House. I make no apology for referring to it again. The originator of the initiative will go down in history as far-seeing in making a wise decision and sticking to his guns in the face of pressure due to the downturn in the world economy over the past few years. I backed the Minister all the way as did the Government. He was right, wise and far-seeing whereas others wanted him to dip into the fund to finance one-off infrastructural capital projects. While many of the ideas were very good, their champions failed to take a number of factors into account. The primary objection to using the fund in that way was that if one started dipping into it at all, one would continue to find excuses to do so in each of the following years. I congratulate the former Minister, former Deputy McCreevy, and the Government which backed him for standing by his excellent decision.

The decision to reduce our foreign debt was another excellent contribution to the prudent management of our success. The servicing of the debt was a phenomenal burden and drain on tax revenue. It undermined the ability of successive Governments to address and target areas of acute need. In taking on the issue of foreign debt against the advice of a number of people, the former Minister made a very wise decision. I commend him for it today just as strongly as I did at the time. When economic historians look back, they will consider that Minister and the Government who supported him to have done well.