Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

The country occasionally illustrates a capacity for consensus, dramatically so in the context of social partnership. Hopefully, it will be possible to enable the participants in social partnership to chart a way forward for the next three or four years, or whatever will be the length of that partnership.

I worry when people attack social partnership because I have never heard any of them present an alternate model that might come near replicating the success of this model. Surely the short-term difficulties at Irish Ferries and others, including Gama Construction, should be addressed by being put into the melting pot of the new social partnership arrangement. It is fair to say social partnership was critical to the economic improvement of the country and had a positive impact on workers' conditions, wages and on return for employment. It benefited employers equally by enabling them to make profits, some of which were re-invested and so on.

Partnership illustrates our capacity to widen what used to be a national wage agreement discussion into a social plan charting the way forward. Some of our colleagues in both Houses have reservations and suggest that some of the achievements and business of social partnership might more properly be the business of a parliament. The challenge to extend democracy is well met by including the social partners and the trade unions, which represent many people, making them centrally involved and influential in a way not possible in the narrow parliamentary tier.

The other social partners, the farming pillar and the community and voluntary pillar, can make a positive contribution in the next phase, quite different from that which they made in previous phases. Perhaps the challenge to them and Government will be to bring together the other partners at the employer and trade union level which are much further apart than was traditionally the case.

I welcome the excellent figures provided by the household survey and the range of other factors at play. These give us cause for considerable confidence and optimism, as long as we adopt a consensus approach and have the capacity to address difficulties arising from time to time.