Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

He says he only requires five minutes but I am quite sure no self-respecting Kerryman could say what must be said in five minutes.

I cannot believe what I have just heard. I believe Deputy Michael Ahern's speech was delivered about six or seven years ago. The Members who have just spoken, Deputy Michael Ahern and Deputy Flynn, have gone home already. This is crazy and demonstrates how the country is being run. Members are coming into the House and obviously using scripts that were in mode five, six, seven or ten years ago. I cannot understand what is happening.

What worries me most is that the Government is not only denying the existence of the circumstances into which it has brought the people and the country, it is also promoting more of the same. It is suggesting that if it had more money, it would have done the same with it and shoved the whole lot down the drain in one fell swoop. The country needs a general election in a hurry to create some rationale for what is occurring and counteract the madness on the other side of the House. The country is in an appalling financial mess, brought about by a Government that was delirious, roaming around the countryside as if there were no tomorrow, spending money on every single thing that could be thought of, wasting money left, right and centre and living in dreamland or cloud-cuckoo-land. All of a sudden the chickens have come home to roost and everything has dried up.

Some very interesting remarks have been made. On the banking system, for instance, it has been suggested Members on this side of the House would be gleeful if bankers were put in prison. Nobody would be gleeful. It used to be said around the House that politicians would never be put in prison, but they were. There are a few sacred cows around yet who obviously have no regard whatsoever for the national good and can walk away grinning about it. I do not want to see anybody being punished publicly but I do want people to accept their full share of responsibility. This includes the politicians on the other side of the House who have been promoting this nonsense for the past ten years.

We were told until now that the economic fundamentals were sound and that the country, therefore, could not go wrong. The fundamentals have not been sound for the past ten years and there is no sense in pretending that they were. The macro-economic sector was being handled badly and the micro-economic sector could not follow it and had nowhere to go. Therefore, the whole lot went down together. I cannot understand for the life of me why people make speeches such as those we have just heard and continue to do so, even in the current climate. Some 90% of the problems we face were created within the country by the Government. Down in Ballybrit, before the tent was closed, Government members used to rub their hands in glee over what was happening. They claimed the country was making a fortune and was the second or third richest country in the world. I cannot be sure whether it was the second or third richest but, irrespective of which, it no longer has that honour.

It appals me that we are in the current circumstances. In the budget first mooted last September there was a prediction of unemployment levels and likely expenditure on social welfare was identified. The social welfare budget is still far short of what is required in the current year. This is because the Government could not even plan properly when the recession was close.

Individuals have said this is the first time we have seen such a recession but that is not true. They have said it is the first time the banking system has collapsed in the way it has but that is not true either. The banking system collapsed throughout the world, particularly in the United States, in the 1930s after a spending spree similar to the one we experienced in the past ten years. Reality failed to dawn and everybody was living for today and saying, "To hell with tomorrow".

In recent months loans of 100% to first-time house buyers were identified as the problem. They never were. There was nothing wrong with 100% loans but there was a problem with 180% loans and 200% loans. I was in the courts a couple of weeks ago giving evidence on behalf of a constituent who had received from a mortgage company a loan of exactly 200% instead of what he should have received on the basis of his income. There are long lists of repossessions in the courts every day, all pertaining to unfortunate, gullible, innocent first-time buyers who were placed in appalling circumstances. They are in over their heads to such an extent that they cannot salvage themselves, with the consequence that their houses are now being repossessed. Their spouses and children are all vulnerable. The State will have to address this issue.

Deputy Flynn has made the realistic point that thousands of houses are locked up and will have to be sold. Nobody will buy them at the prices at which they were expected to be sold last year or the year before. They will have to be sold at a knock-down price and there will at last be a bonanza for the first-time buyer. The existence of first-time buyers will be recognised, I hope before too long. However, there will be a serious problem of negative equity for those who bought houses in the past seven or eight years. This can be resolved, although I do not propose to speak about how it can be in the short time available to me tonight. Until such time as this issue is dealt with, there will be no movement in the economy. It will be stuck with a huge overhang of debt - a cantilever of debt - which, unfortunately, is beyond the powers of management of ordinary people.

At a time of economic crisis such as this, the obvious stimulus is to cut taxes and reduce the burden on the citizen but the Government has done the very opposite. This is a new form of fiscal rectitude. The Government has decided to punish the unfortunate people who had nothing to do with the downturn and who are receiving a punishment beating daily. Sadly, as the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and everybody else in the House knows, in a few months the Government will be back again with a carrot in one hand and a stick in the other to beat up the people once more. This will happen because its economic policy is flawed and just does not work. Tired as the Government may be of hearing this, it is time it got its act together and listened to advice on what is going wrong and what was going wrong for a long time and which needs to be addressed. If this does not occur, the recovery will be postponed for years. It will not be possible for it to take place.

What has happened in the international banking system has happened before. There was no magic overnight panacea, nor will there be now. Deputy Michael D. Higgins compared the Irish, European and US social models. We have had lots of debates in this House on the issue during the years. I have no hang-ups regarding the public and private sectors. There are some areas in which services are delivered better by the public sector. For example, utility services are delivered at least as well by the public sector. I do not want to debate Eircom now but it is a case in point that continues to come to mind. There are also other examples. In some jurisdictions it has always been recognised that where the public sector concedes to the private sector in areas such as those to which I refer, there should be ongoing investment in infrastructure to ensure the service provider can continue to operate. Apparently, we do not have such a system here. The theory is that the primary interest is that of the shareholder but it is not because the customer is also a shareholder. The interests of customers must be borne in mind at all times.

I cannot understand why people say nobody could have foreseen the downturn. I am sure the Leas-Cheann Comhairle cannot understand this.

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