Ann Ormonde (Fianna Fail)

I agree with speakers who say the financial situation has deteriorated greatly and I wish the Minister for Finance every success in his negotiations this afternoon. I read an article by one of the leading journalists in The Irish Times today and I was impressed by his approach. He said the international media are not accurately communicating the Irish position and indicated areas we could be talking about positively. He mentioned the information technology industry and the fine people who work in it and who could give leadership. He also referred to tourism. While that industry is languishing at present, nevertheless there are opportunities to re-invent and re-market the tourism industry.

These industries are driven by people with vision, energy and imagination. I would like this Chamber to talk about those issues. There are many fine people working on the ground but we hear so much negativity from some of the international and Irish media that we never get a chance to do anything positive. We are coming across as such negative people, it is no wonder the public at large are disengaged from us and feel very vulnerable at present. We should talk about our IT industry and those industries based on agriculture and food. These are areas where much positive thinking is going on. We should have debates on these issues in this Chamber.

There is room for discussion of the issue of students dropping out of third level institutions. With regard to the study being reported on, perhaps we should debate why the institutes of technology seem to have a higher dropout rate at the end of first year than other third level institutions. This Chamber could entertain a great debate on this issue.