I am delighted to see a significant number of Deputies from the Progressive Democrats in the House. When one considers the level of brinkmanship engaged in during the past week one would be inclined to wonder what happened during the 16 weeks of the summer recess in relation to the deliberations on the programme they are now discussing.

I think that most politicians were ashamed to be politicians during the summer. There has been much talk in this House about Dil reform. I think most Deputies can appreciate the cynicism of the electorate when we consider that we were in recess for 16 weeks. There was a feeling among people that the country was almost rudderless during that period. It was not the Government who dominated the media during that time. The media was dominated during the summer recess by people who have become household names at this stage, for example, Desmond, Tully, Smurfit, etc. and a whole succession of reputed scandals. I do not intend to dwell on those aspects as they have been more than adequately discussed during the course of this debate. There appears to be almost a purging of guilt by all sides - probably trying to purge the sins of the past.
However, we have to analyse how this [996] situation evolved and developed. One has to go back almost to 1930 to understand this. Except for brief intervals when other parties took over power, we have had almost uninterrupted Fianna Fil rule since 1930. What was almost a mantra of business people during that time was "what is good for Fianna Fil is good for you - you support Fianna Fil and we will look after you". We need to go back to the times of TACA, which was an embarrassment to the Government, when builders seemed to have undoubted confidence that Fianna Fil would look after them well. Therefore, what we have to look at is the underlying characteristic of many of these business scandals. How did they evolve? They evolved almost by definition because of the intrinsic arrangement between business people and Fianna Fil. Politicians and Ministers would be very quick to say that we cannot taint them with the sins of these people, but I think they are bound intrinsically into much of what happened, especially in view of the fact that Fianna Fil have been in power for so long.
People have become cynical and have a lack of confidence in the Government. They are beginning to ask questions. Indeed, recent opinion polls reflect the questioning nature of people who are unhappy with the performance of Fianna Fil and the Progressive Democrats. What will happen? We will know at 4 p.m. today what will happen.
I wish to refer to some of the problems facing this country at present. During the 1987 elections Fianna Fil put up giant hoardings with pictures of passports which said that if people supported Fine Gael and Labour this is what they would get. We never tacitly supported emigration in the same way as this Government have. If one wants evidence of this one has only to remember the Fianna Fil Senator who almost condoned emigration and who, encouraged by fellow Members of this House, hitched a ride on a Russian jet in order to visit the United States. That is symptomatic of the attitude of the Government to the unemployment crisis. What imaginative [997] proposals did the Government put forward during the summer months to convince people that they intend to do something positive about this problem? I can assure the House that they have done very little in this respect.
One could elaborate on the crisis in agriculture and the concern among farmers that their position is not being protected by the Government in the Common Agricultural Policy and GATT negotiations. We all know about the health problems in our constituencies. People visit us who have all kinds of problems. We still talk about the two-tier health system which has evolved. People believe that the Government are not trying to combat these problems. Instead of dealing with the serious business of running the country, over the past few days we have been debating the issues which arose during the summer months. How, therefore, can Members of this House vote confidence in the Government?

