Mr. Nat O'Connor:

If it is all right with members, I will speak briefly before inviting my colleagues to talk about a couple of technical points. As for protecting people with low incomes who are vulnerable, perhaps I did not make it clear enough in my presentation but we provide numbers and cost estimates for all our proposals, which indicate one can meet the target the Government has set this year without being obliged to cut social protection for those with low incomes or who are vulnerable. We absolutely would state one could ring-fence and protect secondary benefits, as well as primary benefits. On where we would get money for jobs, our proposal of €4.5 billion involves looking at the National Pensions Reserve Fund, which essentially is a national wealth fund. Again, the economic evidence suggests that now is the time when one will get much more value for money in investing that money in the economy, not simply for a short-term stimulus and job creation but by targeting it in areas of strategic infrastructure, such as broadband, in which one will get a return in long-term economic development for both the private sector and the State, as well as longer-term jobs. That is where we would look for this money. Moreover, many other proposals about money, such as the private pension funds and so on, have been articulated.

In respect of the two-party Government and the programme for Government, we are considering our own strategic plan in conjunction with my board of directors, many of whom have worked in the private sector for all their lives and in some cases were chief executive officers of major corporations. Their view is that in the private sector, a strategic plan of three years probably is long enough. The programme for Government is for five years and there is no doubt that if the Government wished to conduct a review halfway through to ascertain how it was getting on, it could review, rewrite and change the programme for Government. As it is a living document, I would not think it is very much tied to that. Indeed, the fact of having a two-party Government is a strength in a way, as it can try to build a broader consensus. If pre-budget audits and analysis are to be carried out, it will require cross-party support for the kind of data that must be presented and for that kind of analysis to be opened up to scrutiny and not politicised.

On the question of the divide between workers and the unemployed, I echo many of the points made by Dr. Seán Healy. In my previous work in the Homeless Agency, we once carried out a survey of everyone who was homeless at a particular time in which we asked people about their desire to go into work. Nearly half of those in emergency accommodation were keen to get work and more than half of those who were sleeping rough at the time stated they would like to get work. While their preparedness for work and how realistic that was are open to question, there is a desire in people to have and to be in work. This pertains to all the social benefits and personal dignity that go with having a job and having a role in society. This desire is very strong and I would dispute any claim that there are tens of thousands of people who are unwilling to work. I believe there is a lot of stereotyping and a lot of very nasty commentary which is not based on evidence or on working with people.

My colleague, Mr. Tom McDonnell, will talk about the debt and the three years of budgets to come, after which my colleague, Ms Aoife Ní Lochlainn, will talk about the issue of how equality auditing would be done in practice.