Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael)

I support my colleague Senator Fitzgerald and second the proposed amendment to the Order of Business for a debate the economy. It is only eight months since we held a debate on housing in the Chamber when Deputy Batt O'Keeffe attended as then Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government with responsibility for housing. At that time it was outlined to the Minister of State the excessive dependence on the property and construction industry that had been indulged in by the Government for the past ten to 15 years. All the eggs were put in one basket. Any economist or anyone with a financial brain will say one should not put all one's eggs in one basket. However, that is essentially what this Government has done for the past ten to 15 years. It has depended hugely on the construction industry and when that went flat, everything else went with it.

All of today's newspaper editorials indicate that there is a recession, something which is frightening for the younger generation, about which Senator Jim Walsh spoke. Many of those young people are now laboured with the large mortgages propagated by the high cost of construction which was not controlled by this Government. It is high time we had a serious debate about our economy and the serious challenges facing citizens. Schools are half built and half of pupils attend classes in prefabs. The health services——