Fianna Fail’s Barry Andrews calls for Irish humility

Fianna Fail TD and Minister for Children Barry Andrews claimed today that Ireland accepting a bailout is not the end of the world.

Andrews claimed that people should be humble and accept that Ireland has been through tougher times, and called on them to have confidence in the ruling Fianna Fail/Green Party coalition.

"If we do go back to revenue and expenditure of around the 2005 or 2006 mark, let's not forget we weren't a poor country four or five years ago," Andrews said.

"If this gives us the confidence to know that where we're going isn't Armageddon but is something that we lived with before, and if we have the humility to remember that we've come from situations like this before, I think it will give people confidence that this Government has an idea of the path to recovery for the country."

Andrews claimed that the government didn’t want to take the bailout, but were forced to accept it in order to pay workers in the public sector.

"Members of the public need to be reassured that what we had to do here is not something we wanted to do," he said.

"We were shut out of the bond markets. Our colleagues in Europe were prepared to put a package together for us and we had to accept that package."

Speaking later in the day on The Last Word with Matt Cooper on Today FM he admitted that he regretted using the word humility, but that the essence of his comment was still valid.