Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail)

I am very grateful to Senator O'Malley for allowing me speak. I would like to make one or two quick contributions. The Chinese say: "May you live in interesting times." A racehorse won the Grand National in the 1950s that was called Quare Times. We are in "quare times" when Fine Gael, for its involvement, get great praise from this side of the House. I have no doubt that Senator Buttimer will warmly reciprocate when he gets up to speak. For two years we have had incredible financial chaos worldwide. It is a crisis that nobody predicted, even though most of the political and media commentators are doing verbal gymnastics to give the impression that they knew about it all along and that they had told us. The reality is that they did not know; nobody told us about it. It is how we are handling it that is starting to make the headlines because some of the media commentators who pilloried the Government and the Taoiseach, in particular, are all of a sudden starting to herald the end of the recession and realise that we are getting international recognition for the way in which the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance and the Government in general have dealt with the crisis. We are in interesting and quare times. Without being too political about it, when we have the luxury of reflecting on what has happened here in the past two years, there will be a serious reappraisal of the role of the Taoiseach in how he faced up to the unprecedented challenges that confronted him.