Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

For this reason, more companies, foreign direct investors and others are being attracted by the IDA than might have been the case otherwise. It is important, therefore, that we highlight the positives. Our competitors abroad, undoubtedly, want to highlight the negatives and have done so at all times. They did this during the good times; development agencies in other countries highlighted the high cost of employment in Ireland and a level of regulation that they considered made business and employment unsustainable. We have gone a long way in addressing these difficulties and are now No. 1 in attracting foreign direct investment and jobs. The four year plan targets a modest net increase of 90,000 jobs. The agencies and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation have set a target of 150,000 direct jobs and approximately half that number of ancillary and follow-on jobs by 2016. The 90,000 figure is at the bottom end of the scale.

I will refer briefly to another issue that has been dealt with by the Government, one that no Government of any hue or mixture would ever want to deal with, namely, the difficulties in the banking sector. It matters little whether the difficulties were caused exclusively by the banks' management and boards of directors or in part by light touch regulation. When the problem reached a point at which it could not be dealt with in the banking sector, the Government was first to make a call. If one wants to know more about this issue from an independent and qualified jury, one need only read the reports of Messrs Regling and Watson and Professor Honohan. They are long technical reports, but they bear reading. It is bad enough that few of their conclusions have been disseminated in the media, but relatively few elements have been disseminated in debate in the Houses of the Oireachtas. This is a great failure on the part of the Government, in that we did not disseminate the elements as effectively as we could have, but it is also a considerable failure on the part of the Opposition which aspires to being in government and will, undoubtedly, need to be guided by the principles clearly set out in the two reports which bear reading, consideration and debate.

The reports do a number of things. They confirm the need for an extensive guarantee and what none of us wanted to be the case, namely, that Anglo Irish Bank was of systemic importance at the time of the guarantee. They confirm that a bank failure would have been disastrous for the economy and that the timing of Anglo Irish Bank's nationalisation did not result in higher costs. They confirm that the substantial steps taken to address the main issues of regulation were correct. People are critical of the two Government parties. However, the Green Party has been part of a Government which has introduced a raft of changes, some of which I have dealt with in the Seanad, concerning the Central Bank and regulation, including the appointment of people like Professor Honohan and others. These are important moves-----