With the agreement of the House I propose to share my time with my colleague, Deputy Nora Owen.
Private Members' Business. - National Development Plan: Motion.
Is that satisfactory? Agreed.
I move:
That Dáil Éireann condemns the Government's ineptitude and mishandling of the negotiations and preparation of the National Development Plan 1994-99, and calls on it to lay before the Dáil details of the revisions to the plan that have been discussed with the EU Commission with a clear outline of the annual level of investment from the EU, the Exchequer and the private sector; and affirms that the taxpayer should not be asked to contribute any extra own resources to make up for the shortfall of finance arising from the Government's incompetence and false claims.
In recent years there was a programme on television entitled "Call my Bluff" in which there were three members on each team. Each side picked an unusual word and the three members of the team put forward convincing arguments about what this word meant. However, only one version was correct; the other two were bluffing. What the Government has persisted with since last October is a game of call my bluff, with Ministers coming into the House and giving different interpretations of what was happening with the national plan. We knew they were bluffing but the public has been clearly misled. The Government has been downright disingenuous and shifty in its approach to this matter. There has been, as we saw last week, a clear discrepancy between its public stance and its private understanding of the position. This has resulted in a pathetic but unparalleled humiliation for the Government at home and, more seriously, abroad which is entirely of its own making. The reports of last Tuesday's Cabinet meeting, which I will deal with in some detail, show that the Government is, if not openly divided, clearly in total disarray.
This story is far from over. The revised proposals presented to the European Commission last Thursday morning — an across-the-board cut of 8.5 per cent in the national plan — will be rejected. This suggested revision of the original national plan is vague and is only an opening offer, a negotiating stance. It is more of the ridiculous stonewalling by the Government whose credibility is greatly damaged. More selective specific cuts are required to individual projects and schemes. From my sources in Brussels I learned that cuts in the order of between 13 and 20 per cent are required to make the national plan acceptable — this will be self-evident in the coming weeks and months. An 8.5 per cent cut is equivalent to a saving of £500 million on the proposed expenditure. A minimum of £730 million is required. I understand that 12 of the offices of directors general raised serious questions about individual components of the plan. When the Community Support Framework is published and the operational programmes become evident we will see that the Government's position of last Thursday is untenable and is still not at the bottom line.
An elaborate attempt has been made to mislead the Dáil and the Irish people, resulting in a woeful mess. We have had many quotes such as that from a Government spokesman, "All projects to go ahead" and "Nothing has changed", said the Taoiseach. The Minister for Finance said, "There will be no revised national plan" and the Taoiseach said, "No new national plan". These people sought to avoid the blunt reality. The inevitable moment of truth has yet to come. There will be no hiding place for the Government on the central issue of the need to scale down and revise the plan. Until that is done, the plan will unravel on a weekly basis.
The Government's approach of winks and nods in Europe has resulted in it sustaining a bloody nose and egg on its face. In an attempt to save face the Government has abused European officials and whinged about the Commission. After 20 years in which successive Commissioners saw it as their job to represent the interests of smaller nations and goodwill has been shown to Ireland, we realise that it has been for nothing. The accusation against Mr. Landaburu, of "publicly beating his drum", by a Minister in answer to questions at the Regional Affairs Committee was at best counterproductive and at worst downright stupid.
The reports of last Tuesday's Cabinet meeting are extraordinary. The Minister for Finance proved indecisive and inept. He agreed with his officials and with the Tánaiste on a package of cuts of £730 million. He signed a memorandum that was faxed to these people on Monday between 5 o'clock and 6 o'clock. Subsequently, when he had this early morning session with the soldiers of destiny in Cabinet——
And his bowl of Weetabix.
——he was told that the proposal was not going down very well. He then joined the Cabinet revolt against his own memorandum and, in a breath-taking somersault, opposed his own proposals. Not satisfied with abandoning his officials, the Minister sought to blame them for the débâcle. I read in a series of weekend reports that Mr. Bob Curran and Mr. Michael Tutty were the authors of these proposals and were to blame——
I am sorry, Deputy, there is a long-standing convention in this House that officials should not be referred to. The Minister is responsible and officials should not be mentioned.
I am happy to avoid mention of personalities in the Department of Finance. However, I find it upsetting that the authorship of a document is not attributed to the Minister but to civil servants.
They should be left out.
I will leave them out, but it is little wonder that I read in the same report of strains between the Minister and Department of Finance officials. These incontinent leaks from the Cabinet portray the Government bootboy, namely, pitbull Brian, as having savagely objected to the proposal of a 33 per cent cut in his Department's capital programme. Some of the Sunday newspaper depictions of that Minister waving a broken bottle in front of a petrified Taoiseach are somewhat excessive. It was stated that Albert just kept grinning through the entire affair in the firm belief that reality was what he said it was. "Bulldog Brian" led the revolt and the Minister for Finance was not long following suit.
The Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Deputy Quinn, has many headaches — Irish Steel, an unemployment level of 300,000 and his human resources programme which is up the "swanny". It is clear that Minister Quinn is over-stressed with his current workload. His petulant performance in this House last Friday, his walk out, was a direct result of the dressing down Commissioner Bruce Millan gave him last Wednesday night when, as I understand, he was told in no uncertain terms that his £3 billion job and training schemes would have to be modified. His intrepid performance in Brussels has been likened by officials to that of a dead sheep.
Needless to say, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs was abroad when this important Cabinet meeting took place. I call on the Taoiseach to insist that future Cabinet meetings are held at the same time as rugby internationals so that there is a reasonable prospect of the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs attending them instead of talking to him on a phone link with some other country. There is no escaping the reality that the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs dropped the ball on 20 July when his handshake with President Delors did not secure the £7.84 billion he thought he had in the bag. His failure that night is the basis for the Government's humiliation now. His increasing tendency to berate members of the media — we hear he wanted to talk to named journalists last week — is less than inspiring and not in keeping with the high standards he espoused when in Opposition.
In the wings we have Dame Eithne who surely must get the award for the most memorable quotation in this shambles. I wish to quote from what must be a very valuable clipping from a recent edition of the Sunday Press which states:
Minister Fitzgerald said she believes officials from Brussels will "recognise ultimately that we are the experts on this country".
Increasingly, she resembles Mavis in "Coronation Street", a whimpering, indecisive and directionless character. On 23 November last her replies to parliamentary questions on the National Development Plan, and especially on Tallaght hospital, were so inaccurate and incorrect as to raise queries about her integrity and capacity to mislead this House. Lest I am accused of being unfair to the Minister of State I wish to quote from statements made by her in the Dáil on 23 November. In reply to my question about whether she was aware of newspaper reports that the plan had run into very heavy weather with EC officials, the Minister of State replied:
I am happy to have this opportunity to inform the Dáil that there is absolutely no basis for these reports. We have not run into any obstacles in the course of those negotiations and I do not anticipate that we will.
Unfortunately the Minister has proven to be somewhat wide of the mark again.
We then have the most mysterious, collective and appalling attempt of all to mislead the public. Last Tuesday night the Government released a one page statement on the national plan. That afternoon questions on the plan were raised in this House and on the same day there was a blazing gun battle in Cabinet after the early morning contretemps at which the Minister had done his somersault. After all this pain and suffering, we were told that the Government was fully committed to the implementation of the National Development Plan as published. It went on to say that we would secure extra funding in the mid-term review, we would have increased Exchequer funding and would draw down even more than we expected. This statement was issued after Ministers had nearly torn out each other's eyes in the debate about which Departments were to bear the cuts. Within 36 hours of issuing this statement Government officials were presenting an 8.5 per cent cut in the plan to EU officials. The Government knew at the time it issued that statement that the situation was not tenable. This was subsequently proven to be the case. As a result of the Cabinet revolt the Government was in such disarray it could not recognise reality.
This is a repeat performance by the same brazen scriptwriters who gave us the devaluation collapse; wearing green jerseys, they depict critics and, in particular, the Opposition as anti-national. The subsequent tragedy of errors showed the Government wriggling on the hook of its own incompetence. This was followed by the day of reckoning when the white flag appeared. In a welter of confusion everyone except the Government is blamed for this crisis — on last occasion it was the Bundesbank and the speculators who were blamed. It is the Government's failure to confront the financial facts of life which led to the whirlwind of panic and recrimination both now and in the past. The Government must now outline where the cuts in the plan are to occur. Pro rata alterations disguise the real effect of tough decisions on semi-State companies, the light rail transit system for Dublin, the Tallaght Hospital, local and regional roads and the 100,000 places on job and training schemes. Until such time as the Government comes clean on the changes, all these projects will remain in jeopardy, with resultant confusion about their source of funding.
The central fact remains that the National Development Plan has to be revised. Fine Gael is deeply concerned by the reference of the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs to "own resources". It would be totally unacceptable to ask taxpayers to dig deeper into their pockets to pay for this fiasco. The amount of money at stake is equivalent to any of the following tax impositions. To pay for the shortfall out of own resources the Minister for Finance would have to either reintroduce the 1 per cent income levy, increase the standard rate of tax by 2 per cent, increase the top rate of income tax by 3 per cent to 48 per cent or reduce the standard rate tax band by £2,000. The middle income sector, which has less medical expenses relief, less mortgage relief and less VHI relief and is faced with the residential property tax, has had enough. This over-burdened sector will not carry any further the strain of the Government bungling.
The story of the shrinking billions can be summarised as follows. After the devaluation crisis we were told, applying the arithmetic after the Edinburgh deal, we could reasonably expect £8.6 billion. After the midnight handshake between Dick and Delors on 30 July last year we were assured that the minimum we would get was £7.84 billion. On 21 October last the European Commission sanctioned £7.2 billion. Given the shameless double counting of the 1993 figures and the obvious need for their exclusion — we are talking about a plan for 1994-99 — we will at best receive £6.1 billion. The Government's performance with these declining figures — £8.6 billion, £7.84 billion, £7.2 billion and £6.1 billion — resembles the voting pattern of the judges at the Olympic skating rink, with particularly poor marks for technical ability and artistic impression.
This bogus plan with its false assumptions remains critically under-funded. I have heard reports of "funny money" solutions. It has been suggested that the National Treasury Management Agency will raise money on the bond market. We have been told by the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, that famous bulldog, that the deferral of projects for seven months is all that is required to keep the plan intact. Another rumour relates to an increased private sector contribution. When this is decoded it means fewer headage grants for farmers in disadvantaged areas, a lower percentage of aid for forestry and industry programmes and, worst of all, the hidden agenda of Labour Ministers to introduce a training levy on employers to fund programmes which include the cutting of nettles.
The national plan is not a clear-cut strategy to improve economic competitiveness, efficiency and output. It is a patchwork quilt of political and social pet projects. There has been no focus on value for money, only an adherence to what the Taoiseach calls "visual flagships". Areas of economic development such as tourism, marketing, telecommunications, research and development have been underfunded already in this plan and there is no basis throughout the plan for a return on investment.
The Government's adherence to the hope that the mid-term review in 1996 will make up for the shortfall of funds represents more of this wishful thinking. A new Commission will be in place then. The other Cohesion states of Spain, Greece and Portugal will not be caught flat-footed as they were in the last tranche of funding. The Portuguese plan of £11.5 billion has already been approved in full. The Irish share per capita does not provide a comparative logical basis for additional funding for Ireland.
This attitude of "it will be all right on the night" has not yielded one extra penny for the Irish people and is unlikely to do so. Instead, it reflects poor political judgment and incompetence. It is an exercise in pretence and creative accountancy and will result in more own goals for this Government. The Government ignored advice from officials at home and in Brussels. As one wit said over the weekend, "At the end of the day we will probably owe them money".
In the handling of this issue the Government has shown itself to be riven with dissension and unstable under pressure. Its disunity and division has resulted in a lack of ability to give priority — that was the real failure of last week — to the parts of the plan in need of development and those that needed to be dropped. The only acceptable response from the Government is to set out a timetable for a transparent alteration to the plan which is implementable, practical and realisable. Only then will it remain for the Government to do the decent thing, to offer a humiliating and preferably grovelling apology to this House and the people for bungling and mishandling the affairs from the inception of this Government.
I support the motion tabled by Fine Gael. This debate is about the shrinking billions but, unfortunately, we have not seen any shrinking violets. We have the Taoiseach putting his foot firmly in his mouth; we have the suave Tánaiste going to Brussels and assuming that the same charisma he displayed in the last election will work as if somehow that would carry him through in regard to errors in his statements of how meetings were handled in Brussels. Ruairí Quinn——
The Minister.
——Minister Ruairí Quinn was in the unenviable position of decrying senior civil servants and referring to them as "mere civil servants" in a pejorative way as if they were the lowest form of public servant possible.
I want to take this House on a nostalgic journey, not back to May 1992 when the Taoiseach had progressed from a quarter page to a half page so that later he would eventually achieve the ability to cope with one page but to 12 April 1989 when this House debated the last National Development Plan. I remind the House what the then member of the Opposition, Deputy Quinn, and indeed his party Leader, now Tánaiste, Deputy Spring, did during that debate. The Labour Party moved the following amendment:
condemns the failure of the Government to consult Dáil Éireann on the National Development Plan prior to its submission to the European Commission on March 31st; resolves to amend the Plan by taking into account the contributions in the Dáil debate of April 12th-April 14th 1989 inclusive. Dáil Éireann further instructs the Government to establish, on a formal and legal basis, the seven sub-regional working groups and their advisory bodies, so as to provide for an open democratic forum which would actively engage the energies of local and regional community groups throughout the country.
They were fine sentiments expressed by Deputy Quinn. He said:
The Labour Party have consistently asked this Government — and I would include also all of the Opposition parties here — to consult with us and publish in advance of the 31 March deadline the proposals they were preparing so that whatever would go to Brussels would, in so far as possible, have the maximum amount of political support...
He highlighted the inadequacies of the Government plan and the inadequacies of the democratic role of the Opposition parties. He said:
It is above the petty politics we sometimes engage upon in this political arena and should be bigger than all of us; yet the Government have consistently refused to provide for a democratic political forum which is at the very outset of the philosophical thinking which produced the idea of social cohesion...
His contribution at that time is riddled with requests to the then Government which clearly, in the passage of time, have been forgotten by him. He even castigated the Taoiseach by saying:
The Taoiseach did not have to insist, and if he did insist at any European Council meeting, then he did enormous damage to this country and to his credibility by insisting that we should get something we already have.
He had the audacity at that time, considering what happened in recent weeks, to criticise the Taoiseach and accuse him of lacking in credibility and ruining Ireland's reputation by daring to question or challenge something at EU level. How quickly he forgot about that when he went off to Brussels in the past few weeks and damaged Ireland's credibility. He went on to say: "If we had this debate on a draft document in January or February we would have reinforced the negotiating position of every Irish Minister asking for funding..."
Many of those quotations speak for themselves. How quickly the Labour Party can change its clothes and its thinking when it moves from the Opposition to the Government benches and partakes in what were considered to be the quite reasonable attributes of Government such as a ministerial car and a driver. The Labour Party Ministers went way beyond that; they got their mobile telephones, advisers and a range of specialists to help them to forget the kind of sentiments expressed in this House when the last national plan was debated.
My nostalgic journey brings me now to 14 April 1989 when Deputy Spring, spoke in the Dáil. He said: "The Taoiseach said that there would be a debate, but the understanding was that it would take place when there would be time to make a contribution to the plan". I heard that expression from this side of the House quite recently. Why did the Tánaiste not remember that he had asked for that and provide this House with the possibility last September to debate this plan before it went to Brussels? He also said:
If we are interested in the concept of democracy and allowing elected representatives and local groups to make a contribution to the development of the country, we would want to look very critically at the mechanisms and processes we have employed in the preparation and the development of this plan. For the record I said that the regional development plan to be published the following day was a sham and that the Government were doing a considerable disservice to this country...
Those words have perished with the sands of time. The people who are now in Government have totally forgotten that they made those statements in this House castigating the Government in 1989.
The remarks of which I most want to remind the Tánaiste are to be found at column 1687 of the Official Report of 14 April 1989. He said then:
When we have a further opportunity in the Dáil to question the so-called plan, we will be seeking to have it replaced by one which includes real projects properly costed and funded. The reality is that this plan, albeit a grandiose plan, is not worth one penny if it cannot stand up to the independent and rigorous scrutiny which the EC will apply.
I wish the Tánaiste had remembered those remarks because that is precisely why we find ourselves in our present position. This Government, including the people who made these statements on the initiation of the National Development Plan 1989-93, chose to forget that their programmes and projects, as the Tánaiste said, would have to stand up to the independent and rigorous scrutiny which the EC would apply. The Tánaiste went on to call on the then Government to take the necessary policy decisions so that this country could avail of probably what was the most important intervention.
It is necessary to remind the House what those men said at that time and also perhaps the Minister for Finance present who I note has been left all alone in his glory, not a single Minister to support him. Where is the Tánaiste now? Where is the Minister for Enterprise and Employment? Is he off making apologies——
Not even Dame Eithne can support him.
——or is he putting salve on his wounds? We know that last week he was utterly demeaned when he emerged from his meeting with Commissioner Bruce Millan because the journalists knew what had taken place at that meeting from their sources, yet the Minister emerged and pretended that all was the same.
My nostalgic journey moves on to 5 May 1992 when we were debating the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill, 1992 in the House to allow for the holding of the referendum on the Maastricht Treaty when the then Taoiseach, Deputy Albert Reynolds, said at column 162 of the Official Report of that day:
...so that we could reasonably look forward to receiving roughly £6,000 million between 1994 and 1998.
— £6 billion in four years, my goodness, that was a lot of money then. Various speakers in the course of that discussion urged the Government not to base the Maastricht debate on whether we would or would not get £6 billion at that stage, that the debate was much more serious than that. Of course, the Government at the time wanted to piggy-back on those kinds of promises. That would have been fine had it rested there but, of course, it did not. The Taoiseach then went off with his bags packed to Edinburgh, returned and announced £8 billion over seven years; it was growing, changing before our very eyes. Now the inference on the part of the Government is that, because the Taoiseach returned from Edinburgh in December 1992 and upped the ante, of course implying that he had it "in the bag"— to quote him — he did Ireland a great service. It was like players in a game of poker: I have a royal straight flush; have you something better than that? This is what they are now endeavouring to say, that by upping the ante to £8 billion we eventually got £7.2 billion. Did one ever hear such an argument? Nothing would shake the Taoiseach from that figure of £8 billion. Yet in July 1993 the Tánaiste returned with £7.84 billion. The very next day President Delors used the "L" word — which, in deference to you, a Cheann Comhairle, I will just refer to as such — essentially President Delors indicated that the Tánaiste was economical with the truth of what we would get from the Structural Funds. He spoke about the "fourchette", endeavouring to get across to us that we should not take as gospel the £7.84 billion, that the policy of the "fourchette" was still working. Perhaps it was that Ministers at that time had not studied sufficient French to understand the significance of the word "fourchette". By golly, they know what it means now because that fourchette has certainly damaged them over and over again. Indeed I am sure they have some sore parts as a result of that fourchette having been prodded at them since then; I do not want to ask where they might be hurting. But President Delors said: Be warned, there is not going to be this amount.
The subterfuge continued throughout the summer. The Dáil was not sitting so it was easy for Ministers to make statements outside the House when they could not be questioned in here. Ministers engaged in their summer tours, attended summer schools and paraded the £7.84 billion. Then, in September 1993, we heard from the Government that the plan was ready, that they were obliged to submit it to Brussels poste haste, otherwise they would miss the post, as it were. The Opposition, Fine Gael in particular, called for the Dáil to be recalled so that we, the Opposition, who wanted to support the Government, as the present Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Deputy Quinn, said on 12 April 1989 — so that any plan that went to Brussels would have the unanimous support of all Irish elected parliamentarians — could debate the plan. That is why he called for the debate back in 1989. How quickly he forgot. We requested that the House be recalled but, of course, our request was refused.
On 10 October 1993 the Government submitted the £20 billion worth of a plan, £8 billion of Structural and Cohesion Funds included therein. In July 1993 we were told the figure was £7.84 billion. Yet the Government did not even have the decency to scale it down to that figure, they sent in our application for £8 billion, which was, I think to save the Taoiseach's face because he had already done the £6 billion trick in May 1992, the £8 billion trick in December 1992 and could not lose face.
You have to aim high, you see.
I suppose you do, yes, you have to cast your net somewhat farther, and the Government submitted a plan for £8 billion. Eleven days later the news broke that the "fourchette" was still operational, that the range was now going to be £7.2 billion.
I listened on Sunday last to the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Deputy Cowen, on the radio. Talk about post-hocery and post-justification. The Minister for Finance having come into this House last week and told us there would be no changes, that there was no need, the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications had the gall to say: but we knew back in October last it was £7.2 billion; what is all the fuss about? The Government did nothing about that information; they did not have the guts to come in here or announce anywhere that they were now going to trim down the plan so that — to quote Deputy Spring at the time — it can stand up to the most independent and rigorous scrutiny the EC will apply. One would think they were a crowd of fools over in Brussels, that they could not add up and calculate that our proposals amounted to £8 billion from the Structural Funds, that they were offering £7.2 and, in between, there was a difference of £800 million. I would remind the House that they have calculators, they are still not working on their fingers over there; they can actually calculate over in Brussels, they are not mere civil servants, they are the highest quality civil servants each country can provide. To think that one could get away with pretending that this was not going to happen is beyond comprehension.
I heard the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications say on Sunday last: we knew about this. I say to them: in the name of God why did not they do something about this and not leave us out to dry with officials in Brussels and everywhere else? I want to say to the Minister for Finance present that my firm information from Brussels — he knows it and, I hope, will admit it this evening — is that there is no way that an 8.5 per cent trim can succeed. I do not know how many Members present make apple tarts, but it would be as if one took one's knife and trimmed a bit of pastry off all the way around, a little bit here and a little bit there. If the plan is being scrutinised because of its content, taking 8.5 per cent off a programme being scrutinised for content, which will not really be approved, will be of no use to the officials examining this project because taking a bit off something of bad content is not good enough. I warn the Minister for Finance that in the changes needed in this National Development Plan he and his Government had better not adopt the line of least resistance by deciding in Cabinet, behind closed doors — but with all these leaks — that they will adhere to the programmes and projects irrespective of whether they are as they should be — adding to the true capacity of this country as opposed to just "income transfers"— because, if so, he will not be cutting programmes or parts thereof based on the fact that he cannot cut or change others, because Ministers have given excessive promises to their constituents, to their various sectoral bodies.
Already we have heard of one Minister saying at meetings in his constituency it is wonderful news that we have to trim down and that the projects not included the first time will now be included because some of the others will be excluded. Can anyone imagine a Minister of State advocating that? Projects will be cut in places such as Dublin where there is not a strong or cohesive lobby because a Minister in another part of Ireland has made excessive promises and will raise his fist or have a histrionics attack in the middle of a Cabinet meeting. I appeal to the Minister to tell us tonight what he will do and let us have no more subterfuge.
I move amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following:
"Dáil Eireann, recognising the major contribution to jobs and to Ireland's economic potential arising from the substantial investments to be made with EU Structural Funds and associated public and private expenditure, supports the strategy and priorities set out in the National Development Plan 1994-99 and supports the Government in its discussions with the European Commission on the Community Support Framework 1994-99 to ensure maximum return for Ireland from this expenditure".
I wish to share my time with Deputies Martin, Dermot Ahern and Ferris.
I am sure that is satisfactory and agreed.
I start by setting out the overall background against which this debate is taking place. At the European Council in Edinburgh in December 1992, the Government achieved a major success in the level of resources that the Council agreed should be provided for the four cohesion member states — Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland — through the Structural Funds and the new Cohesion Fund over the following seven years to 1999. The benefits of the new Cohesion Fund have already been seen in the additional investments in the areas of transport and the environment that became possible in 1993. This was followed by the further achievement of securing over £7 billion as Ireland's share of these increased resources. While this is less than had been hoped for as a starting point, it is still a very substantial result and represents easily the largest block of aid ever secured by an Irish Government.
Over the seven year period concerned, Ireland will receive the highest level of EU aid per head of population of any member state. Aid to Ireland will amount to approximately IR£2,100 per person, compared with approximately IR£1,700 in the case of Greece, IR£1,650 in Portugal and IR£1,400 in Spain.
I will turn now to the latest position. It is important to make the position clear in relation to certain key issues. Discussions are underway currently with the European Commission on the National Development Plan 1994-99 with a view to agreeing the Community Support Framework, which will set out the broad national and sectoral strategies for the use of EU Structural Funds.
The way the system works is as follows. The national authorities decide their development strategy and on the basis of this put forward their proposals for expenditure in the structural area, including the use of the Structural Funds and domestic resources, in the development plan. This plan is then discussed with the European Commission and on foot of those discussions the Community Support Framework is agreed. The Community Support Framework will set out, inter alia, the development objectives, the priorities adopted for Community assistance and the indicative financing plan. Following adoption of the Community Support Framework, the operational programmes are approved. These set out in more detail the objectives and measures for each of the main sectors. The programmes are the legal basis for the commitment of EU aid.
There has been a lot of talk about projects and, in particular, about which projects will or will not go ahead. I have described the different stages of the process, that is the development plan, the Community Support Framework and the operational programmes. None of these deals with individual projects. They are concerned with the broader levels of programmes and measures. Only a small number of individual projects are even mentioned in the National Development Plan and the same will be the case in the Community Support Framework. Comprehensive lists of projects do not exist at this stage and we are not discussing individual projects with the Commission, apart from a few major projects which have to be treated separately from the programmes. The selection of individual projects is a further phase following the approval of the operational programmes. Project selection is a process that will continue right through the implementation period. We cannot say now what projects will be implemented in 1997, 1998 or 1999. This is how the system worked under the previous Community Support Framework also and it is how the system works in other member states.
In addition to expenditure proposals which will be aided under the Community Support Framework 1994-99, Ireland's plan includes investments to be aided by the Cohesion Fund, to be aided under Structural Funds Community initiative programmes and to be aided under the EFTA Cohesion Fund in the 1994-99 period. These are governed by different administrative procedures from the Community Support Framework and are not part of the current negotiations. The plan also includes eligible national structural expenditure not proposed for EU aid and 1993 expenditure, including 1993 EU aid.
In addition to 1994-99 expenditure, the plan also includes 1993 expenditure including EU aid. This is to give a complete picture, arising from the increased Community resources, since the new Cohesion Fund came on stream in 1993.
The National Development Plan was prepared and submitted on the basis of a certain projected amount of EU aid under each of these headings — the Community Support Framework, the Community initiatives and the Cohesion Fund. Subsequent to the submission of the plan, on 21 October 1993, the European Commission made decisions on the allocation of resources to member states and specifically on the allocations to the Community Support Frameworks for the Objective 1 regions, including Ireland. The allocation approved for Ireland under its Community Support Framework was 5.62 billion ECUS or IR£4.54 billion. This amount fell short of the amount which had been included in the plan in respect of the Community Support Framework element.
This shortfall was recognised and acknowledged by me and by the Government from the outset. It is important to distinguish here between two different issues. The Community Support Framework has to be agreed now on the basis of the EU aid which has been allocated by the Commission at this stage. Accordingly, adjustments have to be made to the expenditure allocations to take account of the shortfall.
However, it remains the Government's belief that, over the six year period to 1999, it will be possible to do better than this and to get additional EU aid over and above the allocations already made up to 1999. This is a legitimate aspiration which one would expect to be shared by all Members of the Dáil. It is also a realistic aspiration in the light of our experience in the past. The possibility of increasing the allocation during the period has been recognised by the Commission. President Delors was the first person to draw attention to the potential of the mid-term review at the time of the October decisions. Is it really the position of the Opposition that as of now we should completely write off the mid-term review, as far as any benefit for Ireland might be concerned? We will continue at every stage to try to maximise the aid coming to Ireland and that is our duty.
Do not try us.
As I have said, however, the Community Support Framework has to be agreed on the basis of the aid now available. It has been suggested, both in the Dáil and outside the House, that this issue has only been addressed by me and the other members of the Government in the last week. This is not the case and I want to make the record clear on this.
At the press conference on 9 December on the 1994 Estimates I said, "the indicative allocation of Structural Fund aid for Ireland for the period 1994-99 made by the Commission on 21 October is less than the figure on which the National Development Plan was based". I also said at that press conference that this shortfall in EC aid, "has been taken into account by the Government in settling the 1994 Estimates and Public Capital Programme. The assumption underlying the PCP and the Estimates is that Exchequer and EC spending in areas covered by the Plan will be £130 million less than the Plan projections".
This was fully reported in the press at the time. I would draw Deputies' attention to the headline in the business section of The Irish Times of Friday, 10 December 1993 in which Mary Canniffe correctly reported that the 1994 Estimates showed a shortfall in European aid of £170 million. Thus, a full three months ago, I acknowledged that there was a shortfall and I made the first set of adjustments to take account of it in respect of 1994. More recently, in a radio interview I did likewise.
I turn now to the adjustments which the Government proposes to make to the expenditure allocations in the Community Support Framework. Since the plan was submitted in October there have been extensive discussions between the various Government Departments involved and the Commission services. These were on an informal basis at first as the Commission services were still engaged in internal consultations before arriving at an overall Commission approach to the Community Support Framework. The discussions moved into a more formal phase with the first formal meeting in Dublin on 18 February 1994 and have continued since.
From the outset, the Irish side in these discussions has made clear that the National Development Plan represented a set of strategies and priorities carefully chosen by the Government and that we would want to see the basic shape of the plan reflected in the Community Support Framework. This view was restated at the opening of the formal discussions on 18 February 1994. Last week the Government confirmed this essential position in deciding that its position was that the total expenditure provisions in the plan should be adjusted on a pro rata basis to take account of the shortfall in EU aid.
There have been suggestions that these adjustments are not sufficient and that there have to be further cuts. This is not the case. The total EU contribution to be included in the Community Support Framework was settled last October. It is not at issue in the present discussions. The adjustments put forward by the Government deal fully with the shortfall in EU aid. Lest there be confusion about the size of the cutback needed, the Government is looking at the cut in overall expenditure, including the Exchequer and the EU assistance. Higher cuts mentioned by others tend to relate only to the proportionate cut in EU aid. The end result is the same no matter which basis is taken. There is no question of the matching Exchequer funding being cut back in addition to the EU aid. The Exchequer input will be at least maintained.
Opposition Deputies have been furiously trying to create the impression that the Commission has major problems with the plan or that there is some possibility of the plan being rejected. This is totally incorrect. The Commission has accepted the strategy set out in the plan. The ongoing discussions are about some of the detail.
It is very interesting to look back at what Opposition Deputies said in 1989 in relation to the previous National Development Plan. To take some examples from newspaper reports, Deputy Alan Dukes said that the plan was "inadequate, ill-conceived and vague". Deputy Noonan said that "the Cabinet would now be forced to drop about £1 billion worth of projects from the National Plan and he called on them to say quickly which ones will not be going ahead". Deputy De Rossa said that "the plan was so fundamentally flawed that it stands every prospect of being rejected by the EC Commission". He also said that "the Government's handling of the application had been incompetent and inept", words used again this evening. Deputy McDowell said that the plan was "a piece of propaganda" and "an abject failure".
What happened? The Community Support Framework was successfully negotiated with the EC Commission. The strategies, priorities and measures put forward in the plan were reflected, with little change, in the Community Support Framework. Implementation of the Community Support Framework was carried through extremely successfully, now universally acknowledged. It has been the subject of independent evaluation with very positive results reported. The European Commission has also recognised the success of that Community Support Framework and, not least, we received £3.4 billion.
The Minister did not mention the relevant quotes from the Government partners who were then in Opposition.
The Opposition is trying to rerun the same game of creating hype and confusion as they did in 1989. It was proved wrong then and will be proved wrong now. It is regrettable that they could not adopt a positive and constructive approach of getting behind the national development effort which I know they support.
My Department notified other Departments of adjustments to their Structural Fund allocations on 28 February. The Government considered the matter the following day and decided that instead of the approach of my Department, allocations might be adjusted on a pro-rata basis subject to the possibility of securing increased funding at the mid-term review of the programme.
Who wrote that?
There is nothing unusual in the situation where a Government decides on a course different from that proposed by officials. It is part of the mandate and right of a Government to do so. Officials accept this.
Did the Minister ask them? This part was done on a different word processor.
They do not, as weekend press comment suggested, feel let down by the Minister if as a member of the Government he agrees on a course different from that proposed by them. They know and accept that in the last analysis the power of decision on major matters rightly lies with Ministers and, when necessary, with the Government.
The Minister wrote that himself. Blame the officials. Drop them in the manure.
The discussions with the Commission are continuing. Naturally, there are issues on which the Commission requires clarification and areas where it has suggestions for adjustments to improve the overall effectiveness of the measures proposed in the plan. This is not an adversarial process; we view it rather as a constructive one. To the extent that the discussions between the Government Departments and the Commission services can refine and improve the measures in the plan it is all to the good. Thus refinements may be needed but we expect these to be largely at the margins or within particular expenditure areas, with the Community Support Framework reflecting the overall strategies and priorities identified in the plan.
Since the overall shape of the proposals in the plan will remain unchanged, the expenditure adjustments will mainly affect the timing and rate of progress of the various measures in the plan and when additional EU aid becomes available over the period, the pace will be readjusted again. We did this the last time and will do so again.
We hope the Minister will not be there.
The Commission services are, of course, concerned to ensure that the best return is obtained from the Community funding. This view is shared fully by the Government.
As I said in the Dáil last week, I do not intend to get involved in commenting on any of the details of the discussions as they progress as it would be neither helpful nor appropriate. As I said, it could give rise to distortions with relatively minor issues being blown out of proportion and unnecessary alarms being created. The Community Support Framework, when agreed, will be published. There is another important point to remember in this context. Of the total Exchequer expenditure included in the National Development Plan which would be eligible for EU aid, not all will be aided by the EU. Some substantial elements will be financed exclusively by the Exchequer because, with the percentage EU aid rates that apply, there is more than enough total Exchequer expenditure to absorb all the EU aid.
The ongoing discussions are primarily about how the EU aid is to be allocated across the total expenditure package. Therefore, if it turns out that less EU aid than expected is allocated to one measure with an increase in the net Exchequer cost of that measure, this can be balanced by higher EU aid and a net Exchequer saving elsewhere. Adjustments of this nature would have no net effect on expenditure totals or on the overall Exchequer cost.
Finally, the motion by Deputies Bruton, Owen and Yates raises the issue of the impact on the Exchequer of the adjustments which will be made in the Community Support Framework. This is an issue on which, as Minister for Finance, I should comment. The Government is firmly committed to maintaining budgetary discipline and to a fiscal policy set in the framework of the Maastricht convergence criteria. For this reason, as I already pointed out, adjustments were made in the 1994 Estimates to take account of the shortfall in EU aid. Further adjustments will now be made in the Community Support Framework to deal with the situation for the years ahead.
In the 1994 Estimates reductions of £130 million were made to plan expenditure. This was not the full amount of the projected aid shortfall. It was possible for the Exchequer to meet some £40 million of a cost which the plan envisaged would be met by EU funding. That will depend on the Estimates each year. The Government would, however, regard it as imprudent to commit inself at this stage to significant further increases in public expenditure, without having regard to the economic and budget position which will apply each year.
What is the Opposition's record of success in negotiating money from Brussels? The four years Fine Gael were in Government——
And Labour.
——between 1983 and 1986 Ireland received a total of about £1 billion in Structural Funds. However, under the last development plan since 1989 we received nearly twice as much in Structural Funds as in all the years from EC entry in 1973 to 1986.
The total fund is higher.
Of course, listening to the Opposition it is easy to see why the assistance from Brussels in its time was so disappointing. It is always talking our prospects down. It believes it damages the national interest to argue Ireland's case robustly in Brussels.
This is the stuff of fairy tales.
One Finance spokesman told us before Edinburgh we would probably get about £4.5 billion, and was very surprised when we got more than he thought we deserved. MEP John Cushnahan predicted last summer — and got great publicity — we would cut back to less than £6 billion. I do not know why they are always selling the country short, and trying to represent a great achievement as a national débâcle and humiliation.
The Minister does not expect us to believe this.
Some day they may get a chance to go to Brussels and attend a meeting. I do not know why anyone should pay attention to perfectionist criticisms from people who, in most cases, have never negotiated any worthwhile EC funding——
Not yet.
Our time will come. At the rate this Government is going it will not be long.
——for this country in their lives. There is also a lot of good, old fashioned begrudgery in much of the comment, a gloating satisfaction by people, most of whose predictions and analyses have been proved wrong time and again, in trying to score points off those of us who have achieved something that is and will be of real and lasting value for this country. It is something which we will do again.
Why did the Minister not say that last year?
I support the Minister's amendment and the stategy outlined in the National Development Plan. It is to be regretted that the House is engaged in this futile and rather false debate. The Opposition have deliberately engaged in whipping up hysteria about the plan and the entire process leading to the successful achievement obtained by the Government in its negotiations with the European Commission.
That is not so. Can the Deputy not read?
There is a number of fundamentals which are quite clear. If somebody from outside this country or the European Union arrived here last week and looked at the figures for Ireland, Portugal, Greece or Spain one truth would be clear to them — Ireland has done far better than those countries in terms of obtaining financial assistance from now until 1999. That is an incontrovertible fact which the Opposition cannot dispute and should acknowledge. The Government was more successful than any of those countries in securing significant amounts of money from Europe. Yet the Opposition is creating hysteria to try to catch the Government out.
The Government is doing that on its own.
It does not need us.
Is there any substance in the Opposition's analysis of the plan? Does it offer constructive options in terms of the strategies or programmes we should adopt to try to create economic development? No, it does not, but there is a slavish adoption of certain views emanating from one or two officials in the Commission. The Opposition holds the view that if a Commission official argues that too much is being spent in a certain sector, he is right and we are wrong.
The cheek of them.
Mere civil servants. This is the Ruairí Quinn school.
I am not criticising anybody. People have the right to say what they want but equally we have the right to refute their viewpoints and put forward alternatives. I defend very strongly the emphasis on and allocation to human resources in the National Development Plan. I was extremely disappointed to hear Opposition spokespersons rubbish and undermine that element of the plan because in doing so they are undermining the younger generation who depend on the implementation of the human resources section of the plan for their education and training opportunities.
Fianna Fáil in Cabinet takes a different view.
At the Finance and General Affairs committee Deputy Yates rubbished the allocation of £3 billion to FÁS training schemes and the educational institution establishments. As a former teacher, who is committed to education, I am appalled——
The Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Deputy Cowen, and the Minister for the Environment, Deputy Michael Smith, are opposed to it.
People hold the view that no evaluation has been carried out on training schemes and educational programmes but very significant evaluations have been carried out. The City of Cork Vocational Education Committee, of which I am a member, runs a third level tier, through the college of commerce, Scoil Stiofán Naofa and Scoil Eoin Naofa and 2,500 students attend post-leaving certificate courses. We made a submission under the National Development Plan seeking financial assistance for the third level tier but if there is any significant change in the strategy for funding that sector, our young people will suffer not only in Cork but throughout the country. Approximately 30,000 students would be affected. The universities and the regional technical colleges have significant investment plans which need funding. The Opposition is rubbishing that type of planning.
It is far too general.
Given our demographic structure, we must invest in our young people.
Why has unemployment grown to 300,000?
It is quite clear that the National Development Plan is a broad framework under which detailed policies will emerge. It is infantile to ask which project will be cut. If the Opposition continues on this road it is destined to be in Opposition for a long time because it is not coming forward with constructive policies or programmes to put to the House.
That speech has to be worth a promotion.
In the two motions before the House, a phrase in the Fine Gael motion calls on the Government "to lay before the Dáil details of the revisions to the Plan that have been discussed with the EU Commission". If there is anything akin to national sabotage it is that, because it wants the Government to disclose its hand before it has finished negotiating with Brusssels.
The Taoiseach has been playing poker since the beginning of the negotiations.
It behoves everybody to support the efforts of the Government to try to maximise the amount of money available from the European Union. I was in Brussels on the day the national plan was launched, as were some Opposition colleagues. We met with Commission officials who are currently looking at the plan and their initial reaction to it was that yet again Ireland has been able to produce a tremendous plan. I challenge anyone in the Opposition to contradict me. Is it any wonder that the Opposition is clutching at straws? Fine Gael has been at sixes and sevens over the past couple of weeks. Could the people have confidence in that party? I heard Deputy Yates say on radio that he will table a motion of no confidence in the Government — where is it?
It has still to come.
He decided otherwise because people have confidence in Fianna Fáil. The Progressive Democrats are not much better. With all due respects to the Member present, they cannot even agree on Euro candidates.
Is Deputy Ben Briscoe the Fianna Fáil candidate?
The Opposition is naïve if it thought that the National Development Plan would be accepted on the nod. That was never going to be the case. It should row in behind the Government and accept that amendments will be made to the plan as have previously been made. Fianna Fáil-dominated Governments have shown in the past that they are able to maximise the amount of money available to this country and we will do it again.
In the three and a half minutes available it would be impossible to say what I think of the Opposition's motion. The Government is in a position to make decisions and has influence in Europe and at home. Its decisions will be supported by people of influence here and in Europe. The Opposition has created a climate where it almost wishes that we will not get the money. The reality is that we are getting a greater amount of money than any country ever received before. If that gives cause for concern, I share it because we have done extremely well.
There is general acceptance that there will be a reduction but there is an opportunity to review the plan in accordance with the commitment given by the Commission and M. Jacques Delors. In that event, is the Opposition suggesting we should not try to get additional money? Should the Government, united with the Opposition, not try to get the greatest possible level of funding from the European Union? Is it not more important that we make the best possible use of any money we get? Should the Government go cap in hand to Brussels and say it is sorry for asking for so much and it intends to make cutbacks to the projects? The Opposition would then say the Government had promised the light rail link, corridors from the south to the west, and the commissioning of the Tallaght hospital. The Tallaght hospital is being built in spite of the Opposition. The Opposition would be the first to criticise the expenditure of public money to build the hospital. We started it and we will finish it. The problem is that the Opposition knows that as well. We will also carry out the major programmes in the plan. We are not going to concede defeat half way through the battle. I do not think any Member, Opposition or otherwise, would deny that we have done well. Deputy Cox acknowledged on the airwaves that we have done well and, unlike others, he never said we should have sought less.
Not at all.
Deputy Yates asked consistently where will the money come from if we do not secure funding from Europe.
The taxpayer.
The Deputy, and his party colleagues, are so concerned about the taxpayer they have not yet decided what it is exactly they want.
What about the probate tax, the family house tax, VHI and mortgage interest relief?
The Deputy and his colleagues have not made up their minds as to whether they want to support or denigrate this plan. If we make a decision to spend less money, next week in Private Members' time the Deputy will be seeking money for county roads and so on. On the one hand the Deputy wants the Minister to increase public expenditure but on the other he criticises him when he does. Unlike the two previous speakers, Deputy Cox has some experience in Europe and has a contribution to make to this debate.
Flattery; promotion speech No. 3.
Given my recent experience I have decided to speak off the cuff again tonight as it adds more spice to life.
Watch the fourchette.
I am sharing my time with a Fine Gael speaker.
That is significant.
I seek clarification on a number of points the Minister made in his speech either in this debate or in some other forum. I tabled a number of parliamentary questions for reply today to ascertain what we were seeking for the period 1994-99 at 1994 prices. I was anxious to discover what the starting point was in the current negotiations between the Government and officials in Brussels. The Minister gave some of the figures tonight.
Under the Community Support Framework in the period 1994-99 we will receive £4.54 billion at 1994 prices. Under the Community initiatives which have not been finalised we should receive at least £400 million, with some variations, at 1994 prices and £1 billion approximately from the Cohesion Fund which has also not been finalised at 1994 prices. Taken together, in the relevant six year period we will receive £5.94 billion at 1994 prices. That is the figure on which we are working.
The Minister said tonight that the adjustments are sufficient and no more cuts will be required. It was reported last week that a cut of 8.5 per cent was required. The Minister or the Minister of State should clarify which figure was cut by 8.5 per cent. While he did not concede that the cut was 8.5 per cent the Minister said the Government is looking at the cut in overall expenditure, including that of the Exchequer and European Union assistance.
We sought £6.824 billion at 1994 prices for the National Development Plan. The gap between the figure mentioned by the Minister in his reply today and the amount sought for the plan is £884 million. I am confused as to which figure has been cut by 8.5 per cent which would give one an answer of £884 million. I would like that clarified.
It should be borne in mind that for every £1 provided by the European Union we were to provide £2.50 by way of public and private sector investment. The gap in the figures for the National Development Plan in the relevant six year period is the equivalent of £884 million multiplied by 2.5. If there are to be no further cuts which figure has been cut by 8.5 per cent, if the reports are correct?
I agree with Deputies Martin and Ferris and the Minister that of all the Cohesion countries we have got the best deal. The reason this debate is taking place is that the triumph has been shattered and obscured by the myth that surrounded it. That is the reason the Government has found itself offside. I stand over the contention that even before the plan was published the message was conveyed in no uncertain terms at Commission level that the mythical figure was not going to be made available. We engaged in an exercise of selfdelusion to the extent that we knew that the figures were unattainable. This led over time to a triumph being turned into failure and a débâcle. It was an act of selfdeception and we continued to propagate that act over time.
Several new elements — I will not call them deceptions — which might deceive, confuse or obscure, have crept back into this debate. One way of extending the old myth is to extend the timescale, and say that if we cannot finish on time we can drift for another year or two. That can be done with any plan, but extending the timescale is extending the myth itself rather than relating to the timescale of the plan and the realistic figures that are available and sticking with them.
Today the Minister compared the amount this Government got from Europe with amounts negotiated by past Governments and said what a great Government this is to have got what it did. Funding from Europe is the exclusive preserve of our negotiators. It requires that financial perspectives be agreed by the Twelve within which we negotiate our slice, and it is not a triumph of any Irish administration that the funding went up. The funding increased significantly when the European Union implemented the Single European Act and agreed to double the amount of Structural Funding at the time. It was a decision of the Twelve. When we agreed to the Maastricht Treaty we agreed again on a substantial extra layer of Structural Fund resources and the new Cohesion Fund. The Twelve delivered that. It is a falsehood to suggest that it was either a triumph of one administration or a failure of another.
I listened to Deputy Owen's criticism of the Labour Party and her excursion through the records. I can only recall a very elegant remark by Deputy Brian Lenihan on the futility of consistency. The Labour Party is establishing in Government that it subscribes to the Lenihan philosophy that to be consistent is futile.
I have doubts about the mid-term review the Minister referred to, but I do not express these doubts in an antagonistic way. I hope that if there is a mid-term review the Government and the nation can prosper from it. However, the financial parameters within which Europe can spend up to 1999 were settled at Edinburgh. Although that may change in money terms because of inflation or adjustments in the exchange rate, there will not be more resources overall. Whatever extra we would hope to get must arise by way of others not getting or not using what might have been theirs. That may happen, and good luck to us if we can benefit from it, but although not impossible, it is of a low order of probability.
I am greatly amused at the Minister's saying that President Delors was the first person to draw attention to the potential of the mid-term review at the time of the October decisions. Indeed he was. He was also the person who stuck the four-chette into this Government's mythological bubble at the same time. Jacques Delors, whom we are now citing as the saviour signalling the way forward in the mid-term review, who could not deliver as President of the Commission——
He delivered a lot.
He did not deliver what the Government thought was in the bag, but perhaps he never thought it was in the bag. We now cite Jacques Delors as being able to predict how well we will do in the mid-term review when the same Jacques Delors will not even be there as President. When he was President he could not deliver what we thought he had delivered, but when he is gone we want to believe he is the fountain of all wisdom as to the prospects in the mid-term review.
We love confusing the public with numbers because it is so easy to change base years, inflation rates etc. and no one ever knows what we are talking about. However, what we will have in the bag when the whole process is finished will be fixed at 1994 constant prices, subject to inflation or exchange rate adjustments over time. That will produce more in money terms in the future than any current suggestion might suggest, but in real terms it will not be one ECU more than the real base on which it is set in 1994.
Another myth is that when we add everything up in 1997 or 1999 we will have proved our worth and the total will not be £6.1 billion or £6.8 billion but £7.84 billion or whatever. That may be so if inflation is high and there are significant exchange rate adjustments. However, the £2.86 billion of the last time, which we say grew to £3.4 billion, did not grow by magic or by mirrors; it grew because £300 million came from inflation and exchange rate adjustments and about another £200 million came from Community initiatives subject to the same adjustments. There was no magic, no mirrors, no inside track and no horse trading. That is why I draw attention to these creeping elements of mystique that the timescale will be out a little and the mid-term review will be our saviour — Jacques Delors told us that and he ought to know. That we got much more by 1993 than we thought in 1989 is part of the same mythology.
I am glad — and I give this much credit to the Minister for Finance — that slowly but surely in recent weeks the Minister has begun to demythologise, at least in finance terms, some of the elements that the Government still vigorously defends. I refer to the demythologising of some of the figures. As the Minister pursued the inevitable logic of cutting down in the 1994 budget, his Government insisted on continuing the mythology of the £8 billion or the £7.2 billion or whatever.
I will finish as I began by remarking that this has been a major achievement in the lifetime of this Government, a major contribution to European solidarity and to economic and social cohesion by our fellow member states in the European Union. All that said, the reason it has been an embarrassment for the Government for so many months is that we turned the reality of the triumph, through myth, nonsense, bluff and bluster, into a political debacle and a failure. That is why this debate is taking place. Members of the Opposition need not apologise for having a debate on this issue and the Progressive Democrats will vote in support of the Fine Gael motion.
Debate adjourned.