Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

I support the calls for consensus made by many of my colleagues. However, it is important to emphasise the point made by Senator Regan about the degree of consensus that already exists in many areas, including on the need to reduce our deficit to 3% of GDP by 2014, to implement budgetary adjustments at an early stage, and to ensure that what we do stays within the eurozone framework. In some ways, our difficulties are so grave that to blame our crisis on the lack of consensus is to miss the point. The financial markets are looking at Ireland and they know all the main political parties are committed to the broad strategies that are in place. They are not doubting the commitment to those strategies but the strategies themselves. They are doubting whether the State has a sufficient appreciation of the budgetary difficulties in which we find ourselves, and they are doubting whether our statement that our banking difficulties have come to an end is correct.

The calls for consensus are based on the assumption that if we reached a full consensus our difficulties would go away. I do not think that is our main challenge. Our issue is not a lack of consensus about the strategy; it is that the financial markets are doubting the strategy of this Government, and potentially the entire political system, in terms of dealing with the vast difficulties in which the State finds itself. That is the real challenge that this Government probably cannot face up to any more, but that the next Government will certainly need to.