Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

On Senator O'Toole's last point, one of the last points I made in my opening contribution was that we would bring forward policies in the forthcoming budget to ensure the burden of adjustment was spread as fairly as possible. That is something common to us all.

I thank all Senators for their contributions to the debate which has been constructive. I do not propose to attempt to answer all of the points made but would like to pick up on a few issues. In a rather interesting contribution Senator O'Donohue suggested the Government was bringing forward a notion that there was no alternative. I can think of many alternatives, four of which I will mention. We could put off taking serious action or spread it out over a long period.