Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

We need to make a more serious effort to outsource facilities and activities in the public sector that can be done more efficiently by the private sector. We need to sell some of our State assets. We need to ask fundamental questions about whether it is of value for the State to be involved as a shareholder or otherwise in the outright ownership of certain activities. We need to have that public debate. It should be done in an open and not a surreptitious manner of people hinting that it might or might not happen. We have to examine the taking of such actions.

The last time we went through a process of austerity under Mr. Haughey from 1987 onwards we achieved an enormous reward from that process. Admittedly, the growth and the jobs came slower; we had to wait until the early 1990s before we moved out of a period jobless growth, having previously moved from a period of utter austerity from 1987 onwards. However, the austerity was worthwhile. We achieved growth and then we achieved job-led growth later in the 1990s. Hopefully, this time around it will not be as slow. Ireland is a much more internationalised and globalised economy today than it was then. If we - I refer collectively to the Government and Opposition parties, which naturally wish to participate in government - get our act together quickly and deliver the harsh medicine quickly, there is the tantalising prospect of a full recovery, a jobs-led recovery rather than jobless economic growth.

I thank the Members for their contributions. It is a pity to see the two great parties of Opposition disagreeing on the fundamentals of how we can get out of recession but I am sure-----