Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the new Labour Party Whip. If she was here long enough, she would know that the most cynical campaign ever carried out in opposition was by the then shadow Minister, Deputy Reilly. That is a fact.

Of the current cuts, front-line cuts are all over the news. All Senators are fielding complaints in their constituency clinics about cuts to home help hours - hours cut to half hours, half hours cut to 15 minutes and 15 minutes disappearing. That is what we are all interested in here. In terms of the achievements, I have never doubted what Senator Crown rightly said earlier on. Some people see things that are and say, "Why", and others dream things that never were and say, "Why not?" I have said many times that I do not doubt the vision or commitment of the Minister and his team to what they want to achieve. The reality is that we are 18 months in but where are we? We had a ¤329 million overrun in August, which some months later has risen to ¤375 million. Yesterday, the civilian heads told the Committee of Public Accounts that they would tell it what they wanted to tell it.