Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail)

The pantomime of who is to blame and what could have been done is for yesterday. What is for discussion today is our future. I say this irrespective of what I read in the Financial Times and what is written by the Dublin-based correspondent of The Wall Street Journal, whom I last heard defending an article of his by saying he was only repeating what was stated in the Irish press. As an Irish citizen, I believe in the ability of the people in this room on all sides and in the other House to get through this mess, which as Senator Hanafin has said is much worse than the position in the 1980s. We will do it and we must tell the public, confidently and collectively, that we will do it.