Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I thank the Cathaoirleach for ensuring there was no problem with the Order of Business. I thank the Leader also for accommodating my colleagues by allowing a debate on CIE to take place during the discussion on the national spatial strategy tomorrow. That certainly will be very helpful.

One of the issues we have discussed many times in the House over the past 20 years is the democratic deficit created by the existence of social partnership. I have always argued that the elimination of social partnership would not create any greater involvement of the political parties, mainly because they were afraid of their lives to get involved in something that would require them to compromise, lead, take risks and establish timing. The current debate on consensus proves that to me. There is no appetite in these Houses for people to fill the gap created by a lack of social partnership. Rather, the appetite is for having a go at whoever happens to be in power by whoever happens to be in Opposition at any given time, and there is no change to that. There is a lack of leadership on this issue and a fear of risk taking. I have never sat at a negotiating table but that the majority of letters and phone calls were telling me not to do so, to walk away and not to get involved. I spoke to John Hume when he started his opening talks with Sinn Féin, and he had the same experience of being told not to do it, the timing was wrong, he would be destroyed, etc. These are the risks of leadership and they are not being taken. Now that we have reached this pass, let us hear all the great chat, proposals and so on from the parties in both Houses.

We discussed many issues yesterday and my colleague, Senator Eoghan Harris, raised the point of making the Croke Park agreement work. He also went on to talk about the public sector. I take issue with one aspect of this. He is completely right in saying we have to reform the public sector, but it should be remembered that more than 1.8 million people go to work every morning, only 500,000 of whom are public servants. The idea that we can deal with the economic crisis through addressing the public service is a distraction. The public service has to play its part but we must ensure those with wealth, assets and high salaries, wherever they are, pay more than the people on the other side. No one can argue with that. Before we get carried away with the productive sector, let us recognise it was not the public sector that got us into the mess we are in, although it had a part to play because, along with the Government, it was responsible for creating the economic circumstances that allowed the productive sector to grow. It failed, in the event. There is no question about this and the Croke Park agreement debate should look into that.

Before we get carried away with what the business community could do, we might look back to three to four years ago to see what might have happened had we taken such an initiative then. We might have had Seánie FitzPatrick as Minister for Finance and "Fingers" Fingleton running enterprise and employment. This is the reality. We need to be calm about these things and ensure everyone plays his or her part and allow no one to get off the hook in order that people on high salaries are pulled down and pay their share, while also ensuring a quality public service is in place that does its business of allowing economic growth to take place.