Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

Let us see. The reason those parties came together was not for the interests of either the Fine Gael party or the Labour Party but for the interest of the country. We put together a national Government because of the crisis the country faces. This is a national Government and I sometimes get frustrated by my colleagues or Labour Party colleagues spinning that the Labour Party has achieved this or Fine Gael has achieved that. It is all irrelevant in circumstances where the country cannot fund itself and the difference between what we take in and what we spend is €15 billion annually. The key objective of the Government is to get the current budget deficit down and to get Ireland back to the market. When that happens, politics as normal will be re-established and the points of choice between the parties will be clear. The country does not have those choices at the moment and for any politician, Government or Opposition, to pretend otherwise is delusional.

Senator Thomas Byrne asked how to quantify an improvement in reputation. One way is to ask the question posed by a Labour Party Senator during the debate on the Finance Bill. The cost of Irish money in July last year, in terms of borrowing, was over 14% on the real market and the cost today is less than 7%. That is a good indication of the way in which the reputational damage done to the country has been restored somewhat as a result of the actions of the Government over the past number of months.