Eoghan Harris (Independent)

I am loathe to take issue with Senator Ross, who gave me very good financial advice several years ago. I remain reasonably solvent because I heeded his advice to put a small legacy into a plastic bag inside a Jacobs cream cracker tin and bury it in the darkest part of the deepest woods.

However, I take issue with the nit-picking. I wish the Government was more courageous in its defence of the National Pensions Reserve Fund, which seems to be one of the most imaginative innovations of the former Minister for Finance, Charlie McCreevy. I deplore the constant revisionism that is taking place. I always hate hindsight in people or those who wait for polls before putting their hunches on the market. I cannot stand whinging about apologies. We did what we did and one lives one's life minute by minute. Who in Ireland's history could escape scot free from the never ending tribunals of inquiry? Mistakes were made and obsessing about them comes under the heading of what my mother used to call "a Mhuire, a Mhuire", which is what the women at a wake used to howl and moan. If one moans like that, one becomes impotent and cannot move.

The National Pensions Reserve Fund is a perfectly understandable Irish phenomenon. It was established in the boom times to back up the pensions reserves and, dialectally, to do any other function required of it. The reserve is just a kitty or nest egg. I agree with Senator Ross that it does not make sense to borrow to top it up but I do not care what it is called. It is almost a celebration of our exuberant financial health during the Celtic tiger era. It is our rainy day money and some of it should be spent on recapitalising the banks or on small and medium enterprises. I do not see any reason to nit-pick about what it is called or why, although I agree with the Senator's secondary point about avoiding borrowing.

I do not want to nit-pick the Minister of State on the farm issue but, given that he responded to me on it, I should note that I am not referring to farmers who own less than 60 acres. As even this quantity of land is worth approximately €1 million on the market, they are not in the same position as civil servants who are totally dependent on their income. They have the capital of their farms behind them. Farmers who own more than 60 acres are not paying enough. I recognise that the Minister of State has to protect the interest of his south Tipperary constituents but I come from an urban background and I wish to raise several difficult questions.

Why are farmers not paying towards the farm pension scheme? Why are 3,000 public servants assigned to the farming industry when they could do far more valuable work in other Departments? Why is a region by region balance sheet not published so that we can understand how much an area receives compared to the amount taken from it? Take, for example, a cutback of €50 million imposed on a regional hospital. We would need to know the grants being paid to the farmers in the region before determining the equity or otherwise of the cut. Why are there special laws for farmers in regard to stamp duty? A progressive land tax would help young farmers and take some of the old hang-abouts off the land.