Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

I have no doubt that in years to come when people ask what the Government did about the great recession that gripped Ireland, historians will write that the Government caused most of it. I heard Senator Hanafin criticise the performance of the Opposition, but the Government will not produce its own plans until October at the earliest. Despite the fact that it has received Mr. McCarthy's report, the Government will not publish it or make any decisions until later this year. It is rich for anybody on the Government side to accuse the Opposition of not making decisions, when the Minister for Finance has openly acknowledged that he has no intention of doing so either until the end of the year.

The IMF report is helpful because it allows for a forensic analysis of the status of the economy, as well as the role played by the Government and other parties in getting to where it currently stands. It reminds me of yesterday's debate on the Lisbon referendum. I said then that the guarantees to the Lisbon treaty that we will ask people to vote on are written with wonderful clarity in simple language. The clarity of the guarantees is one response to the justifiable criticism that the Lisbon treaty was too complicated to read. The same can be said of the IMF report in that its language is clear and its points straightforward.

I want to focus on three points that have not been raised so far in the debate. They go to the heart of many of the points that Senators Hanafin and Callely made. I want to look at what the IMF report has to say about what the Government is doing on expenditure control, levels of public debt and the establishment of the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA. I will begin with the latter point. There is a certain kind of politician who is worried about what the public thinks about him now and what his historical legacy will be. There is such a politician in my constituency - the former Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern. Everywhere I go in the constituency there are plaques stating that a hospital, door or window was opened by Bertie Ahern, T.D. I wonder if the same plaque will be found on the NAMA offices. I really do not think so. If there is to be any memorial or tribute to the record of the 2002-07 Government it will be the National Asset Management Agency. Tragically for our country, that agency will be around a lot longer than Ceaucescu's bowl or any tribute that President Sarkozy is looking to set up to himself. NAMA will be a recognition of the near lethal way that Government managed our economy. If Deputy Bertie Ahern does not put a plaque on the NAMA building, I will be tempted to do so myself. I will be like an Irish version of Banksy, hanging up plaques-----