Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and pay tribute to the Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach. The non-review of social partnership was one of the issues that arose when we conducted a review of the Seanad last year. Many other speakers have noted, and my experience in Government has shown me, that those responsible for social partnership agreements negotiate in isolation while we await their decisions. The process involves ambushes and both mock and genuine battles but finally a decision is reached. I spoke with the Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach, who thought my idea was a very good one. He then communicated the idea to the Taoiseach, which led to today's debate.

It is better to have such a debate than not at all. This House is a worthy forum for our contributions on the matter. Earlier I welcomed the Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, Deputy Tom Kitt. I am unique in having lived through all the social partnership agreements, mostly in the Dáil. I remember the Programme for National Recovery, which was the first agreement and genuinely concerned with national recovery because we were very near the edge and the situation was dire. We were in danger of toppling over the edge. It was a particularly fraught time for the Departments of Education and Health, although health was not my brief.

Looking back on those years, I feel I escaped because the cutbacks in the health service were so bad. How could one talk about cuts in class sizes when the situation in the health service, which does not appear to have improved, was so bad? I remember speaking briefly, as a new member of the Government, to the then Taoiseach, Charles Haughey. I had been the shop steward for the ASTI in my school so I was, and have remained, that way inclined. When everybody was searching for the second socialist, it was me.