Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

The Minister has often spoken at length in this House and he always has been good at revision of history. The Opposition never had the same views as the Government over the past five to ten years. We had different views on benchmarking, which some people considered an automated teller machine or ATM for the public service when it was introduced. We made a strong case at that time to the Government to deal with the issues of accountability, transformation and reform of the public service. We were ignored by the Government. From that point of view we were quite different.

We had a different view on decentralisation. We urged the Government to be careful in what it did to the civil and public service in its plans for decentralisation as it could ruin the service rather than improve it. The initial announcement by the former Minister, Mr. Charlie McCreevy, outlined a scattergun approach of 53 decentralisation locations throughout the country. It was soon reined in to less than 40, and progress in that programme has not improved. The majority of staff who moved under decentralisation were already living outside the greater Dublin area and simply moved to a different location outside Dublin.

We also raised concerns about the PPARS project and the waste of taxpayers' money on a system for paying health service staff that has since been switched off. These issues, and there are more if I had sufficient time to discuss them, marked our approach as significantly different from that of the Government. The Minister should acknowledge that.

In discussing the stabilisation of the economy and what we should do for the future, we should start with our democracy. Both Houses of the Oireachtas have been neutered by Fianna Fáil in the past two decades. They have become nothing more than places to rubber stamp decisions made in Dublin Castle by the Government, its advisers and the social partners. The Government has taken power from the people and given it to a select group. It simply came to the Oireachtas to present us with reports or a fait accompli and told us to vote on them.

We have heard speakers from the Government benches speak in support of what Senator Denis O'Donovan is doing about the Harbours Bill in an effort to protect local democracy and issues which he considers very important. However, if Senator O'Donovan was not standing up for those issues, all the Fianna Fáil Senators would have voted for that Bill by now. That is how much both Houses of the Oireachtas have been neutered. Even the Government representatives will rubber stamp whatever is decided. They will not speak their minds and say what they believe is wrong about Government policy. They will not stand up against that policy but, like sheep, will do what they are told by their betters in Fianna Fáil. That has led to many of our current problems.

It sickens me to hear members of Fianna Fáil criticise the Opposition for saying hard things about the Government, as if we are not being sufficiently patriotic in what we do. Our job, since the Government has neutralised Parliament, is to stand up to the Government and be extremely critical of it. It is not our job to come up with solutions for the Government. Most Ministers have between 200 and 500 civil servants and advisers to help them in that role. When we do offer solutions and suggestions, they are ignored in the majority of cases. There is no consensus in this Parliament between the different political parties because it is the Government's decision not to have such consensus.

The next decade will be extremely difficult. The economy will not turn around in 2010 or 2011 and Ministers who claim it will are only continuing the foolishness they have displayed in the past couple of years since the election was won in 2007. It was only last March that the members of the Government felt they could pay themselves 14% increases in their ministerial salaries, which was incredibly out of touch with what we knew was happening in our economy at the time. We knew there were difficulties. I said in this House I thought it was a mistake when I received a letter last September stating we were to get a 2.5% pay increase, given that everybody knew the reason we were having a budget in October was that the national finances had deteriorated so much.

When the Celtic tiger was going well, I never heard any Minister giving credit to Alan Dukes for his role in the Tallaght strategy. All the credit was soaked up by Fianna Fáil and its party members with no credit given.