It is sad to reflect that this House meets somewhere in the region of between 90 and 100 days in the year and we are devoting two full days to a vote of no confidence in the Taoiseach. The motion is divided into two parts, one referring to the Taoiseach and the other to the Government. The Taoiseach is not the leader of my party so I can speak about him with a reasonable degree of objectivity. On the one hand his achievements on the international stage have been considerable. On the other, his performance on the domestic scene, while it inspires confidence in most respects, has had its share of ups and downs.
I was glad to hear the Leader of the Opposition preface his remarks this morning by saying that he would not speak in a personal manner about the Taoiseach but in a purely political sense. Not even the Taoiseach's most vitriolic political opponent could truthfully allege that the Taoiseach was anything but a very worthy person and worthy representative of this nation.
As an international statesman the Taoiseach has embellished Ireland's reputation abroad. The Taoiseach's performance as president of the Council of Ministers in Europe has been very distinguished and has resulted in an increased awareness not only of Europe in Ireland but of Ireland in Europe. On the signing of the Lomé Convention which tied in a number of African countries with their former colonial masters in Europe now under the EC, when there was a danger that the negotiations would break down because of the refusal of some of the EC countries to deal with their former African colonial powers, the Taoiseach intervened and stated that with the kind of arrogance which is common to colonial powers, the powers in Europe like France, Italy and other countries formerly involved in the colonies, did not understand the meaning of what it was to be a subject people but that we understood that well. That Taoiseach relayed that to his counterparts in the EC and by his statesmanship in that situation managed to avoid hurt and to assuage the feelings of the people who had been hurt by some of what went on there, and he was able to pilot that agreement through. That agreement was of major benefit to the countries concerned and vicariously, to this country through the actions of the Taoiseach.
It is one of the ironies of this debate that Fianna Fáil have chosen to table a motion of no confidence in the Taoiseach within days of the award to him of the highest honour that can be bestowed by the German people. Hugh Leonard said in his cryptic humourous fashion that no one in this country would ever die of a swelled head. Being an insular people we have a natural characteristic of being more critical and more vicious in dealing with ourselves and we are often less generous in our recognition of the achievements of our own people than other people abroad. I need hardly remind the House of the remarks of Dr. Johnson when he spoke about Ireland and he said: "They are a remarkably fair people, they never speak well of each other." That is a characteristic that has not lost much of its potency 200 years after Dr. Johnson.
At home the Taoiseach's great achievement has been his capacity in the talks on Northern Ireland and his work in bringing the people together and in binding together the New Ireland Forum, of which I had the honour to be a member for 15 months. I regard that as being one of the greatest experiences of my life. It certainly rewarded me and justified my involvement in politics. After the New Ireland Forum we saw the emergence of the Anglo-Irish agreement which was due in no small measure to the tenacity of the Taoiseach. I come from the oldest city in this country, a city three years older than the Charter of London under John on 18 July 1175 in Limerick. During those 800 years the energies of the Irish people have been directed towards getting Britain to withdraw from this country. For the first time in eight centuries we saw an admission by Britain before the legislators of the world, America, the UN and the EC, that she was prepared to withdraw from this country when the majority opinion of the people in the North so determined. Agus is cuma cé chomh fada an oíche, sa deireadh tagann an lá. It does not matter how long the night, in the end the morning comes. Already we have seen a very faint but definite symptom of a change in the mentality of our Unionist brethren in the North that would have appeared unthinkable a mere two years ago.
When I was speaking at the Committee on Crime, Lawlessness and Vandalism yesterday — we were speaking about obscenity and violence and the impact of television on the behaviour of some of our people — I commented that the most awful obscenity I saw on our television was the shovelling of Irish corpses and their arms and limbs into plastic bags to be taken away, when they had been dismembered by bombs placed by Irishmen, however well intentioned they might think their actions were. It will be recognised in history that no other person in the history of this country made a greater effort to stop that carnage and obscenity than Deputy Dr. Garret FitzGerald coming from a family that has given distinguished service to this country for generations. Indeed, it was his people who built the very house we are sitting in.
I welcome the Taoiseach's contribution to history. I have no doubt that he will be recognised and remembered for all time for what he has tried to do in bringing together the worst and most virulent divisions in the world today, apart from those in the Lebanon. When people put down motions of no confidence in such a man can we look around and ask who by their words and gestures in the past trafficked in the human misery of our people in the North, by sloganeering for mean and base narrow political objectives and helped to perpetuate these divisions in the North of Ireland?
I cannot help remembering a slogan that was used some years ago in an American election: "Will you buy a car from this man?" When talking about confidence, there are two types of unease that can be generated in one. There is the type that can be generated if I bought a car from somebody and he forgot to give me its keys; there is the other type of person and if I bought a car from him I would ask myself was I buying the car with the original engine or if the mileage clock had not been tampered with. I do not think anybody would think in the latter way of the Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald.
What are we really talking about here? Are we talking about style or substance? A motion of confidence on the issue of style is highly questionable coming from Fianna Fáil — and it is a party to which for their achievements for the Irish people and the nation I give full credit. They seem to have lost their way and at present it is a matter of regret to most of us that the style adopted by that party in recent times sometimes borders on the fascist in that they are prepared to subjugate individual differences to the need for ensuring that the leadership is seen as almost infalliable. All of us would have our criticisms to offer of the present Government's style, especially those on the back benches who have to defend decisions in the making of which they are not involved and the rationale of which is sometimes very difficult to understand and accept.
In regard to reshuffles, I should like to put this on record as somebody who might have liked a different aspect in the reshuffle who would have understood or appreciated a greater degree of support in that regard. But enough of that, we accept the rationale of the changes that have taken place. I do not see anything wrong in bringing out the goalkeeper or fullback to play at centre field if it helps the team to give a better performance. The team itself was not changed but we can change the people in it. I am sure many of my constituents will understand what I say. The reaction I get from the people is that this is a rí-rá, a fuss about a situation that is all being “hyped” up artificially. I accept the need in a democracy for an Opposition to behave as an Opposition. I commend them for their attention to that aspect of their duties but we must be serious about what we are doing. The ordinary people are quite cynical about this two-day debate and feel we would be better engaged doing something about our real problems for which there are no easy answers. They want to know if, with the new line-up, this Government will be able to communicate their policies better and consult more often. They also hope it will concentrate the Government's mind on the key problem of unemployment. From the first day I was elected I have said that I believe our two major problems are unemployment and taxation. While unemployment may be the greatest social problem, the greatest political problem is taxation. Even if we had everybody in the country working we would still have the most unfair and inequitable taxation system in Europe, although there have been very welcome trends in the recent budget to ease the burden on the PAYE sector. I was very glad to note the imprimatur and welcome these aspects of the budget have received from my trade union colleague, Mr. Peter Cassells of the ICTU.
I should like to congratulate Deputy Michael Noonan in my own constituency on his appointment to the key portfolio of Industry. It is very important in the context of employment. In Limerick city in my own area, in an otherwise relatively good region as regards employment, there is a very large black spot. I hope he will be able to direct his energies, which are considerable, to the solution of some of our problems there. I put it to the Minister that it might not be untimely if, during his present mandate he would look at the situation which arose from changes made by one of his predecessors, Deputy O'Malley, now Leader of the Progressive Democrats, when he introduced the second job creation agency into the midwest region. I accept this was done with the best intentions for the region at that time but I think that all concerned would recognise that experience, sadly, does not bear out the expectations. It may be timely to give back the Shannon Development Company their original mandate as the sole job creation agency for the midwest region. That does not reflect in any way on the excellent work done by the IDA. There may be an unnecessary and wasteful use of scarce State resources in having two Government agencies working for the one region. Handling back the mid-west region to the Shannon Development Company for them to look after job creation in the area would be timely.
I should like also to congratulate our colleague, Deputy Kavanagh, on taking over control of Fisheries, Forestry and Tourism. This is an enormously important position. We should not under-estimate the potential for development in the national interest of these natural resource areas. May I question the wisdom of having several semi-State bodies urging the use of Irish airports? That is a wasteful exercise of scarce resources when it might more properly be left to the Shannon Development Company whose original mandate it was to promote Irish airports. That might be considered.
In the context of forestry and fisheries we all remember the recent controversy involving a proposition whereby private interests were talking about buying up our forests for the purpose of commercial exploitation. I am glad to say that the Labour presence in Government blocked that awful suggestion. I am more than glad that now we have a Labour Minister in charge of that area and that any development carried out will be in the interests of all the Irish people and the taxpayers and not just to make a profit for private enterprise and private money. For instance, it was indicated that up to £750 million might be on offer and that shows just how valuable this resource is. We must get maximum value for our people from that resource.
If we include energy we can say that a great deal of our natural resources are now under the control of Labour Ministers. While Fianna Fáil have been talking about expanding the natural gas grid Dick Spring, has been doing it quietly, maybe too quietly, yet very effectively. He has been doing it through the medium of public enterprise which under his general control and direction is becoming steadily more efficient. Let me say that as Mayor of Limerick at the time the announcement was made I welcomed very much Dick Spring's insistence——