Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail)

I am not speaking about the Minister of State. I refer to senior Ministers. Many of us think he should be in the Cabinet but, unfortunately, he is not there this time around.

I agreed with Senator Whelan's remarks on the Order of Business on capping bankers' salaries. The individual who introduced caps on bankers' salaries was the late Brian Lenihan, God rest him. People said at the time that the cap was too high. What has the Government done about the special advisers to Ministers? The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform breached the salary cap he is responsible for policing. The special adviser to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine wanted to be patriotic by working for his country but he was out the door after six months to take a job that offered double his salary.

The Government has to lead by example. The public gave it a mandate and if this motion does anything, I hope it will help the Minister of State's colleagues realise they are in government. The time has passed when they can merely accuse others of failure. I hope this debate will allow us an opportunity to debate the failures of the previous Government but never in the history of this State was more money invested in capital infrastructure. This Government has halved that rate of investment. One only needs to look around every town, village and parish in this country to see the benefits in terms of infrastructure, sports clubs, roads and light rail. There were mistakes but there were also many positive initiatives.