Lisa McDonald (Fianna Fail)

I thank Senator Corrigan for sharing time. She clearly had much more to say and it is very generous of her.

This is an ill-timed motion and the debate has been disjointed. People are talking about historical issues but what we are debating is confidence in the Taoiseach and whether he is the right man to do the job now.

I have friends like those about whom Senator Phelan spoke and people coming into my constituency office who are hurting. People are hurting, and it is easy to be cynical. I visited a school last week where I spoke to 14 year olds and, to be honest, I nearly cried leaving it because of the cynicism and the lack of hope in those students' eyes. That is partly because of a media fuelled, Opposition fuelled constant berating of a good man who is doing the most difficult job that has had to be done in this country heretofore. He has been doing it while ignoring a lot of what his party is saying. He has to do that because he is putting his party second to the country. That is a very hard sell, and it is not a job any public relations agent, no matter how good they think they are, can sell properly because people will not easily take cuts. It is a very difficult thing to have to live with, and they are living with the consequences of the position in which we find ourselves.

What we are talking about is going forward and coming out of this recession. I told the children in that school that we will come out of this recession and that they have to have hope because it is they who will bring us out of this recession, and the best person to do the job is a man who is able to say "No, I am taking this course of action because this is what the country needs". We have engaged in economic restraint. We have taken the decisions that need to be taken and we will come out of this recession.

On what Senator Shane Ross said about the Judiciary, the GAA etc., I accept there are issues in regard to our corporate governance and soft touch regulation. Political appointment of the Judiciary is probably the best way forward and as a practitioner I have never felt that I have gotten any good favour from the Judiciary——