Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

Discussion on the creation of jobs without addressing the more difficult and less popular issues of competitiveness and fiscal stability is simply vacuous. Businesses will not prosper unless we win market share for our goods and services. However, every measure we have taken to regain our competitiveness during the past two years has been opposed tooth and nail on the floor of the House. There is no rigour or serious intent in the economic policies of the Opposition parties. Their approach is simply a part of the political game.

The mid-year Exchequer figures published by my Department last week show that the public finances are stabilising. Challenges lie ahead. Next year, we must identify €3 billion in savings. Further savings will be required in later years. The Government has already embarked on its examination of how this can be done. I look forward to the hearing the views of any of the other parties on this matter.

Decisive action and determination has brought this economy out of recession. The same characteristics have been brought to bear on our banking crisis and this has received international recognition as well. Governments throughout Europe are only now beginning to force their banks to face up to reality and recognise the losses on their loan books. As Klaus Regling remarked on his recent visit, we are ahead of the game in resolving our banking crisis. We set up the National Asset Management Agency to clean up the banks' balance sheets. NAMA went into the banks and discovered the real picture. We realised progress could not be made unless there was a separate, independent, statutory valuation of banking assets.

Where would be today had we followed the proposals of the parties opposite? When the NAMA Bill was introduced in Dáil Éireann, all Deputy Kenny could do was parrot a proposal from the financier, Dermot Desmond, published in a newspaper article that morning. His plan was to leave the banks to value and work out their own impaired assets while benefiting from a State guarantee. The idea was to split the banks in two, default on those providing badly needed funds to the banks and then leave the banks to their own devices. Where would the banks be now had we followed that policy? Our first bank to emerge from this crisis with new private sector investment was Bank of Ireland. Had we followed Fine Gael's recommendation last September, it would still be mired in crisis, critically under-capitalised and short of funds. What would have happened had we taken it over and nationalised it as the Labour Party wanted to do? Would it now resemble Anglo Irish Bank? What has happened to Fine Gael's proposal for a national recovery bank? This seems to have gone by the wayside, although I accept there was never a credible plan for the bank to raise funds. Likewise, there was no such credible plan for the Labour Party's strategic investment bank because funding for these institutions would reduce the amount and increase the cost of funding for the existing banks and the State.

The actions of the Government have won the confidence of the international community. They have allowed us to pre-fund for this year on more favourable terms than would otherwise have been the case. If anything, this reinforces the need for the policies we have pursued. They are an essential part of the strategy on which other parties remain silent. If this recession has taught us anything, it is that we must be honest with the citizens. We must tell it as it is and not as we think they would like to hear it.

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