Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

It is absolutely unbelievable.

On 10 December, the Government will announce, for the sixth time, three extra half-trains on the Maynooth line. A normal train has eight carriages but these trains will be only four carriages in length. CIE had the option of one and a half trains but decided to opt for three half-trains. Furthermore, they will make a half-journey. Instead of going from Maynooth all the way through to the south side, they will stop at Connolly Station and passengers will hop off and wait for a DART. This is the only new service pencilled in for the north west side of the city, including Maynooth and the surrounding areas, until after 2008. It is extraordinary.

The Government signed up to commitments under the Kyoto Protocol and launched its national climate change strategy in 2000. However, very little has been done. There are reliable estimates that we will be obliged to pay annual forfeits of €50 million within two years. The measures in this area are welcome but are very limited. It is a pity that in all the travelling that Ministers have done, they have not spent much time in Denmark. That country has a wind energy industry that has generated tens of thousands of high-tech jobs. We in Ireland talk constantly about a knowledge economy. We could develop alternative energy and help to build and expand the knowledge economy if we were to look at the examples of other countries. The Government, unfortunately, has failed to address the issue.

There were two more announcements today of profitable manufacturing companies in Wicklow and Galway closing down because labour was available at €3 or €4 per hour elsewhere in Europe. The situation at Irish Ferries is not a once-off but rather it is symptomatic of the shift that is taking place. We should bear in mind that the move to a low-wage economy is a disaster for this country in strategic terms. We should look to the Scandinavian countries rather than Hong Kong for inspiration in building a high-wage, high-knowledge economy with high levels of public service. The continuous falls in manufacturing are disappointing. Ireland has been shedding jobs in traditional manufacturing sectors at an extraordinary rate since the Government took office. This is in contrast to the record of its predecessor. The main problem is that much of the job replacement is at low-pay levels. This is borne out by the income tax returns, which show high levels of part-time working and employment at the minimum wage. There are many more people at work but the underlying trends are deeply worrying.

I wish to mention decentralisation, particularly as the Taoiseach is here. All parties in this House agree that decentralisation is appropriate. Past Governments have overseen instances of extensive, planned and successful decentralisation. The current decentralisation programme, however, started life as a political stroke by the former Minister for Finance, Mr. Charlie McCreevy. In the end, like many strokes, it backfired and probably cost him his job. It has been mired ever since by a fatal combination of arrogance, cost escalation and staff resistance. It has not been helped by the extraordinary incompetence of the supervising Minister of State who seems intent on a personal mission to destroy any public or staff confidence in the project.

It is still just about possible for the Government to rescue some part of its plans and to salvage any residual reputation for competence but only if each part of the programme is subject to a thorough review and an acceptance of some basic controls and ground rules that protect the integrity of sound public administration. As matters stand, the major additional cost burden to headquarters for many specialist organisations, with the advent of one office in the decentralised location and another in Dublin, will cause money to be diverted from hospital beds and school places. The Taoiseach must be aware of the foreboding now widespread in many public service divisions about the loss of professional staff and the disruption this will entail.

For example, the overseas aid division of the Department of Foreign Affairs is set to move to Limerick. Senior staff there, following discussions with Mr. Chris Flood, chairman of the aid advisory committee, estimates that this section will lose 85% of its most experienced staff as a direct result of the move. This is madness. We are embarking on a major expansion of the aid programme, involving expenditure of an extra €100 million per year at least. We all welcome that. Next year, the programme will spend more than €600 million. How can this be administered properly if all the most experienced staff leave and are replaced by others who are no doubt qualified but have no direct knowledge of the issues the programme must handle and the regions in which it operates. Planned decentralisation has worked in the past but this project is descending into a pathetic fiasco on a par with electronic voting.

Today's Ireland has many examples of extraordinary wealth alongside desperate poverty. The broad public sympathy for the staff of Irish Ferries comes from the naked display of self-serving greed from the company owners and their acolytes. This is the return to the Great Gatsby society. Blatant and vulgar displays of wealth and extreme inequality have a corrosive effect on society as a whole, especially when those who benefit most are so reluctant to contribute that they make themselves non-resident or else go to enormous lengths to avoid taxes that ordinary people must pay. We need to start talking about this issue, however unfashionable it may be to do so in these days of worship of celebrity and wealth. People talk about the problem of the poor, but instead we need to think about the problem of our country's wealth and how it should be shared in a fair society. Sadly, we saw little of that in today's budget. We needed a budget that was about pure gold rather than "bling bling", but "bling bling" was what we got.

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