Ivor Callely (Fianna Fail)

I welcome my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Billy Kelleher, to the House and the opportunity to contribute to statements on the OECD and IMF reports at a time when Ireland is trying to respond adequately to its greatest challenge ever.

This is a time for sound and solid decision making, when knowledge, experience and innovation are a necessity and we cannot afford to try a little bit of this with a little bit of that. Leadership of Government and the decisions we make in these Houses will determine our future, the quality of our lives and the opportunities for our children. From discussions I have had with my colleagues in Government, including the Minister of State, Deputy Kelleher, the Taoiseach and Minister for Finance, it is clear there has been careful consideration of our exposure and assessment of the extent of our problems as a small open economy. There is clear recognition that we need to correct the position in which we find ourselves and in this regard priority has been given to three areas, public finance, the stability of our banking sector and competitiveness. There is no doubt there will not be any gain without pain, a pain we are currently experiencing. Arising out of the careful consideration and assessment carried out by Government, decisive decisions have been made and a multi-annual programme of expenditure reductions and taxation measures has been set out.

The reports before the House today commend the Government on its actions to date. I listened with interest to the previous two speakers. Senator Twomey read into the record extracts from contributions made by various Ministers during the past five years. What a joke and how sad that he had to resort to pulling lines from previous contributions, perhaps even out of context, and sought to put them up in highlights saying a particular Minister said whatever on a particular day. If that is where we are going, God love us.