Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

I extend my compliments to him on displaying a unique show of statesmanship by putting the country first. It was phenomenal and should be recognised. Unfortunately, there is not enough of this from all sides, especially on the Opposition side. We need to put the country first and if we do that, self-interest must take a back seat. Unless we work towards that, we will be in dire straits and will not resuscitate the economy any time soon.

I have a query for the Leader and also perhaps for the Cathoirleach, through the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. One of the proposals I put to a newspaper that surveyed Members recently concerned the whole area of social partnership which served us so well in the 1980s and early 1990s and probably made serious mistakes in the latter part of its term of service. I proposed that relevant persons should come to the Houses and be accountable and open to debate. If we had the ability in this forum to invite trade unionists to make their case reasonably and be questioned reasonably, and if we could hear other points of view made, we might have a much more mature approach to addressing the very severe difficulties we now encounter.