Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak in this debate but I am very disappointed with the tone of the Government's contribution, which seems more focused on a propaganda narrative to do with the next election than a serious analysis of what went right and what went wrong in the past 20 years.

The Government claims credit for everything. It inherited a ruined economy. The entire country was in a mess. We could not access the markets and, according to its own narrative, single-handedly and without any world events impinging on it, it saved us from ruination. It is a good story, but it shows the trite level to which Irish politics has sank.

The reality, however, is much more complex but it does not suit the Government's narrative to say that. I have always believed, in government or in opposition, that when a Government does something right I should say it is right and when a Government does something wrong, I should say it is wrong. It is a very serious issue in politics if people start believing they have all the wisdom, they are always right and that nobody else has got a clue. We know it is not that simple.

If we look back over the past 20 years we see that two things happened in parallel, and to a certain extent one fed the other. There was a significant growth in the 1990s up to 2009 in both our indigenous economy and in the multinational companies. All throughout that period, companies that are household names came to Ireland and set up their bases here. It would be fair to say that if the Minister, Deputy Bruton, visited multinationals such as Google, Facebook and Intel he would find that most if not all of them had made their investment decisions long before he came into Government because he knows, and he knows I know, that it takes about five or six years from the time a Government starts looking at an investment decision before it makes it, not to mind setting up the factories.

We had genuine growth but we also had, and I would be the first to admit it, a bubble effect in the construction industry. Part of it was fuelled by the growth in that people needed houses and services, and as the Minister knows, there was a massive demand for new houses. Some of it was fuelled by cheap European money that came around the periphery, and if we had a problem in Ireland they had a problem in Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Spain and Portugal. I accept that some of it was home grown and that, as I was in government at the time, serious mistakes were made but to think that the downturn in the economy and the problems on the markets were caused solely by decisions made in Ireland is simplistic and wrong. The Minister knows that.

The big issue that arose in 2010 was that bond yields rose dramatically across Europe and the euro itself came into question, not because of Ireland but because of much wider events. In particular, issues in Greece had a massive effect on bond yields here. We also had the flight of capital from the banks.

We also had an exacerbation of the downturn due to the overheated construction industry. It was like a bungee jump in that the higher it went up, the lower it fell when it collapsed. In terms of what happened, the building industry collapsed further than it needed to have done to remain sustainable, and having gone down so far it had to rise again because we are out of houses in all our major urban areas. There is the biggest housing crisis I have ever seen in my time in politics in Galway. We know about the crisis in Dublin. We have to build, and that means re-employing people in the building industry. If a reasonable amount of building had been done in the past four or five years, we would not be experiencing the current housing crisis. As sure as day follows night, once we had taken the big decisions, and this Government implemented them, there would be always a recovery.

What is often overlooked, and the Minister knows this from his work as Minister with responsibility for employment, is that during the downturn we were singularly fortunate in that the real economy, the productive economy, did not fail.

The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation will admit himself that during his time in office, no more than in our time in the late noughties as they are called, the number collapses of major productive industries has been relatively small. In fact, foreign direct investment based employment has remained solid. Agriculture has remained solid. Industries that should have been very prone to difficulty in the downturn such as the forestry industry have actually managed to adjust and stay out there in the markets. Parallel to the collapse in the domestic building economy, we were very lucky that the real economy stayed sound. That is a fairer assessment of what happened than this propaganda version the Government goes on with all the time.

As a society, we face huge challenges. What we get, however, is non-interaction with the Opposition, sloganising, boastful statements and very little debate. I agree with the Minister that reform of how we do business in the House is needed. I do not agree with him that reform has been as thorough as he asserts. It is not as all-encompassing as he said. When I was in government, I believed, as I still do, that the way we do business in the House, particularly around Estimates and budgets, lent itself to "Alice in Wonderland" politics. Let us start with the big decisions first. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, stood up here the other day and said there would be €1.5 billion to give away every year over the next five years. I am glad he knows that. No one else can be sure of it. As we know, the world in which we live is an uncertain place. Maybe it will be more and maybe it will be less, but he has decided to give €1.5 billion back in one way or another. He said it will be half in expenditure and half in tax cuts. He has not said how this is calculated and whether we should have a debate on whether the first decision - the big decision - is the right policy. I would like to tease out what he has said a little. It always seems to me that Sinn Féin, the Deputies behind me on the Independent benches and the Government have one thing in common. They believe in continuous borrowing on current account. They believe in giving it out before they have it to give out and in continuing to borrow while putting the burden into the future. I would like to ask the Minister if the Government is willing to say that, excluding capital investment to which I will come, and taking into account interest and all current payments, it is not prudent for a household and a Government to spend more on day-to-day expenditure than it takes in in taxation. I would like some day for the Government to spell out whether that is its policy. Will it make it a priority to get there so that it is sustainable into the future?

On the other hand, I also believe there should be a major capital programme of investment in necessary infrastructure. It appears the European Union agrees with me. Contrary to popular opinion, the Government cannot create jobs, but it can create the circumstances in which jobs are created. It can also ensure that jobs are created in a regionally balanced way. Therefore, in line with what the European Union has indicated, there is a great deal of sense in borrowing money as long as it is for capital investment. We should have a comprehensive infrastructure programme. It should look to future needs which would include ensuring that every part of the country is accessible by a good road system. One of the great legacies of the good years about which one hears people talk all the time is the improvement in the roads where they have been improved. We have quite a good motorway system and an excellent one compared to what we had 20 years ago. However, in many parts of the country the road infrastructue is still totally deficient. We need public transport. If we do not provide it, this city will seize up, as will many others around the country. We need a power system that meets the needs of industries big and small, local and national. Those of us who have worked in industry know this is vital. For many small companies, it simply means getting a supply of three-phase electricity. For others it means major power lines.

We need a comprehensive plan to bring whatever is required to farmers, small businesses and large industries. We need fibre in every business and home, not this 30 Mb thing. We are on a small island and need fibre in every home. We need a proper integrated national water system. We need proper sewerage services. A great deal of infrastructure is needed. Of course, if one borrowed the money and invested it in a proper, comprehensive programme, particularly now that prices are competitive, one would create growth in the economy. The growth would occur in the long term on foot of the infrastructure and in the short term through the quick return to the Exchequer from building. Most of the requirements and materials will be home based. The labour will be home based and sand, gravel, timber etc. are all home produced. I am stunned that in all of the talk, there has been no mention of prioritising the needs of every region from the overcrowded cities to the rural areas like Deputy Harrington's, where it is easy for him to get to Cork and just west of it, but then he has torture all the way back to Castletownbere. We need to take a global approach.

The second thing that becomes obvious is that the Government is trying to get involved in a scatter gun approach to buying the electorate. It gives tax relief to those who will vote for it, but not to where it is needed. It will reduce the top rate of tax, but not look at the people who are in the biggest trouble. It will increase the public wage bill.

I was interested in what the Minister, Deputy Bruton, had to say about productivity. I am very interested to know if he is going to say to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, that we need to ensure that service delivery in this country is efficient for the money we pay. I would like to see the low paid public servants, who have been particularly hard hit, get a lift. Will percentage rises be given back? Will the person on €100,000 getting 2% back get €2,000 and will the person on €20,000 getting 2% back get €400? Is that the way the Government will do it? It is absolutely vital that the Government makes a clear statement of intent on how, in principle, it will tackle its expenditure benefits.

There is nothing significant in the spring statement to deal with the problem of those who cannot get houses or those who have houses but who cannot afford to pay for them. It would be easy enough to deal with the problem of the variable mortgage if this Government had the will, but it is set on selling AIB and nothing else. We should hold onto AIB and our shares in Bank of Ireland until every penny that we put into all the banks has been recovered by the people of Ireland. All of the investment should be recovered. I do not know why the Government is in such a hurry to dispose of AIB, but it is doing it on the backs of borrowers with a variable mortgage rate. If the Minister really wanted to reduce the variable mortgage rate, he could tell the banks that if they want to get the at-source tax relief which is paid directly to them and which makes it possible for mortgage holders to pay their mortgages, they will have to reduce their variable rates to 3.5%. Can the Minister imagine the huge lift that would give to all of the hard pressed mortgage payers who are finding it difficult, if not impossible, to pay their mortgages? They would get a letter from the bank saying that it is delighted to tell them they have got a double gain, that is, a reduction in the rate meaning the tax relief is more significant in terms of the mortgage. Fianna Fáil has also proposed raising the amount of mortgage relief available. This would make it an even greater gain to the most hard pressed families in the country.

The Minister talks about having a serious debate but we have nothing but propaganda. I am glad the Government took the four year plan on board. I regret the good parts of it the Government has put to the side, such as reforming the legal profession, and the abolition of mortgage interest supplement. At least the Government, having eventually come to realise it was the only show in town, has implemented the broad parameters of the plan. The Government is falling into the trap that it accuses Fianna Fáil of falling into. That is the trap of believing its own propaganda and an unwillingness to stand back and look at both the good and the bad and the challenges in the future and to deal with things in a serious fashion in this House.

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