Brendan Ryan (Labour)

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. To dispose of an issue raised by Senator Quinn, one of the great achievements of a succession of Governments, dating back to the early 1990s or perhaps even further, is that we now have 1.8 million people at work given that perhaps half that number were at work not more than ten years ago. Some of these people were in jobs that seemed to have no future. I do not want to take away from that achievement. There is considerable reason to be glad about this statistic and to take some pride in what this country has done.