Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I express my appreciation to the Leader of the House for the opportunity to contribute to the debate and I know my colleague, Senator Coghlan, does as well. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, for spending his time in the House for these two debates. It is important that what people have to say is put on the record. It is important that the Government would listen to and engage with it.

I speak as someone who has supported every one of the Government's major proposals from the deposit guarantee two years ago. I have recognised what it is doing. I have stated on many occasions that some of the Opposition's proposals have not been without merit but that on balance I have supported the Government on those issues over the past two years. That is where I come from.

I must make an important point in this regard. When the Government talks about consensus and the ratings agencies look for political consensus, it is good to remember that consensus is a two-way track. The Government must show me, as an Independent Member, how many of the Opposition's proposals it proposes to take on board or has taken on board over the past two years. Regrettably, I have seen very little of that. I see this argument from all sides. It would be nice to see consensus, but consensus is a two-way street and both parties must buy into it.

I am getting the negative stuff out of the way at the beginning. In terms of the blame game, it is crucial to recognise the blame game is an important part of this process. People ask where it gets us. One might as well say we should get rid of the courts. We must look at how decisions were made, and the Government can see that from, for instance, Professor Honohan's report on banking. In many ways, that report exonerated much of what the Government has done. It was very fair but found aspects that were wrong in what the Government did. I go along with the view of former Taoiseach, Dr. Garrett FitzGerald, that one cannot blame the Government for all this, although perhaps one can blame the Government for some of it. It is important to look back and see where we came from in order that we learn from it. If we do not learn from it, we are creating a moral hazard. This idea of not playing the blame game is almost a licence for people to make mistakes in the future. If mistakes have been made, it is a moral hazard not to recognise them and indicate them.

The parties opposite, because they are in Government, will pay the price at the next election. That is the way politics works. Regardless of whether they are fully responsible for all that went wrong, that is the way the world works. The question that needs to be asked to give balance to what I am saying is whether we would be in our current position if Fine Gael was in government. I believe that if Fine Gael was in the Government, we would still be in a bad position. I will let Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil argue among themselves whether we would be in as bad a position as we are.

We need to look at where we are going and the positives as well. My view of the world is one I would recommend to most people. I only listen now to commentators who have some basis on which to comment. I look at the names of those writing front page stories and tend not to read those stories unless they are written by someone who has a basis for writing them. I do not care whether I disagree with them. I would be a long time in disagreement with Mr. Dan O'Brien, the economics editor of The Irish Times, but since he has moved from The Economist to The Irish Times his commentary has been extraordinarily balanced.