Ms Patricia Callan:

In reality, our members have come together and looked at the budget from a realistic stance. We are where we are. No one wants to be here but we are borrowing €1 billion a month to fund our public services. Given that position, we must make choices. In our analysis, as Mr. Ronan Lyons has said, property tax is the least damaging to economic development and growth. The only way we are going to exit this crisis is by growth and by allowing businesses to get on with their jobs and try to create more jobs. I hope we will all agree on that. Our position is not incongruous. It is about hard choices. In making those choices, we accept that it will take money out of people's pockets and we do not want that to happen. It has to happen somewhere, however, and it is better that we tax assets, and a property tax is a wealth tax.

With regard to our analysis of the social welfare bill, it is a reality that we got carried away during the Celtic tiger years. The Department of Social Protection's statistical information on social services for 2010 states that the rates of short-term payments had increased by 80.5% in 2010 on a baseline of 2001. During that time the consumer price index, CPI, went up by 21.7%. Our social welfare rates went up at four times the cost of living. They are completely out of line with international trends. We certainly do not have a slave population. We have the second highest minimum wage in Europe, which is something our members are having to deal with.

Our analysis of youth unemployment is based on a UK model of trying to incentivise people who have never had a job to go and find work. Schemes such as JobBridge have been successful, but JobBridge could be much more successful. Some 2,000 of the internships that were advertised attracted no applicants. We have an issue with making work attractive and encouraging people. While I accept that there are not enough jobs for everyone, there is a mismatch that we need to get to the bottom of. This has to do with delivering on Pathways to Work and the Department of Social Protection engaging better with employers. We all have a common aim, which is to exit the crisis and to have a better life for all our people. The way to do that is to give someone a job, rather than leave them floundering on welfare.