Alex White (Labour)

I do not have a difficulty with debating the ESRI report and it is a pity we do not have time to do so prior to the end of the term. We are very fortunate to have an organisation such as the ESRI which does not seek to massage information or present it in a particular way that would be of value politically either to the Government or to anyone else. In that context, I respectfully disagree with what Senator O'Toole just stated on the Anglo Irish Bank money. How anyone could possibly think the billions being sunk into Anglo Irish Bank by the Exchequer could constitute investment and could be characterised as such in the figures seems to me completely absurd. Quite clearly, it is expenditure and has to be shown as such in our annual accounting. That is the reality of the situation. It has been explained that it is a once-off figure for this year. I do not direct this at my colleague Senator O'Toole but generally, but let us not get so carried away with an attempt, particularly on the Government side, to make things look different from what they are that we misrepresent the reality of the situation and the figures as they are. This is a multi-billion euro expenditure that the State will have to sink into Anglo Irish Bank and we have to face this politically in our economic and budgetary planning and in the basic facts and information we make available to people domestically and internationally.

Another interesting point about the ESRI report which would be worthy of debate is the view that resources should be shifted away from expenditure on infrastructure and more in the direction of retraining and upskilling. That is the area which the ESRI thinks would be most productive in terms of the jobs crisis. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive. There is a very strong basis for continued and improved infrastructural investment in our country but that should not be at the expense of an active labour market policy and investment in retraining, upskilling and education, which is what we need. To that extent I regret the way it appears to have come out that we can have only one and not the other. We need elements of both. It is unfortunate that we do not have an opportunity to debate the report.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record on the question of how we debate matters, when we return in the autumn is there any way we could structure a debate on a jobs policy-----