Ivor Callely (Fianna Fail)

The financial and economic challenges have brought us all to a new level of deep concern and crisis. The current banking crisis is different in nature from anything we have ever experienced before in this country. It has enormous consequences and it is far-reaching and total. It is felt everywhere and it fuses through every sector of our community.

The public is anxious. It knows it is not directly responsible and yet it is being asked to support difficult measures. Certain actions by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, and the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, have hurt almost all of us in some form or fashion. However, the Minister and the Minister of State have amassed great admiration at home and abroad for the difficult decisions they have taken.

The global credit meltdown and the changing economic landscape have resulted in testing financial times for almost everyone. The past few years have, at the very least, been trying if not downright scary. Dramatic falls in house prices, pay cuts and increased unemployment have created difficult financial pressures on a sizeable proportion of the population. I concur with much of what speakers said about home mortgages. Many people have witnessed their personal wealth diminish, not only mortgage holders but people who invested in property, pension funds and so on. Their burden of indebtedness has escalated. While insecurity of income and employment are not one's own fault, when a number of calamities happen outside one's control, it is easy to see oneself as a victim.

There are many variables and matters of opinion currently. Fundamentally, the issue is how we got ourselves into this position and how we find a solution out of it. There are many reasons to be optimistic, regardless of one's current circumstances. A path to recovery is being laid by this Government. Its decisions to date have proved to be the correct decisive decisions and that has been said at home and internationally by many eminent people.

We all want the ability to cope without becoming negative and surrendering. We need to be resilient to deal with adversity and we need the confidence and skills to address the difficulty, whatever it may be, and the ability to recover and take on the new challenges. I wish the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, and the Government continued success in what now looks to be the turning point and in giving us the leadership necessary at this time.