Alex White (Labour)

Senator Mooney has noted that we have just come out of a period in which the market was not reined in adequately. He has contrasted this attitude with that in the 1980s when the market was not such a marauding or unfettered element of public policy. I concur with much of what he said, but our system faces certain difficulties in this regard. I do not wish to ratchet up the tension levels because the few of us who are left in the House should be able to hold a calm debate on these matters. It is as if we are being kept back after school. Everybody else is gone.

This and future Governments will have to be prepared to defend the policies they implement. The Governments which came to power in 1997, 2002 and, to a lesser extent, 2007 celebrated the unfettered market which was at the heart of their policies. Senator Mooney may argue this was due to the improper ideological influence of the Progressive Democrats, but, while the full history of the recent past will not be told until it has been analysed by historians, the journalism of the period indicated an absence of resistance on the part of Fianna Fáil to the policies which the Senator rightly criticised. As Minister for Finance and Commissioner, Charlie McCreevy was an apostle of this approach.

I may disagree with particular policies, but I accept that people are entitled to seek the electorate's support for them because we live in a free world and a democracy. However, Government Members cannot come along afterwards and say the policies of the past were terrible and should not have been introduced as if they were semi-detached. I am not personalising my comments to Senator Mooney. Deputy Martin's apology this week was not as full blooded as it has been described, but he beat his breast about the way in which the tax base had been undermined by reducing taxes too quickly and vigorously. People are going to expect more from politicians on all sides. We have to get away from the idea that Governments can deny the policies they pursued for ten or 12 years.