Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

It is interesting to read the Minister's speech which mentioned the word "competitiveness" 18 times, yet refers to Fine Gael 19 times. In his speech, the Minister of State, Deputy McGuinness, used the words "Fine Gael" six times, twice more than the word "competitiveness". They are more interested in slagging off the Opposition — they are afraid of us for the first time in a long time — than they are in addressing serious issues like competitiveness. They accused Fine Gael of being unwilling to take a policy stance which would upset any substantial interest group. We took a stance on benchmarking and if the Government had had the courage to take such a stand, it would be upsetting a lot less people than it is today.

The Minister said we are unable to adopt a fiscal policy, which is totally untrue. Only last week, Deputy Bruton published a document setting out in detail our fiscal policy and budgetary perspectives. It is there for Ministers to read should they choose to do so. The Minister also argued that we used selective statistics, but he is an expert in doing that himself. For example, he claimed the IMD ranks Ireland second in investment and first in CPT. However, he omitted the fact that the IMD has reduced Ireland's competitiveness ranking from fourth to 13th since he became Minister. On our share of world trade he selected out services. He said our share of services went from 1.87% to 2.54% in 2006. The National Competitiveness Council states clearly that Ireland's share of world trade services, a small but growing component of Irish trade, increased in 2006 after a slight decline in 2005. That is true, but the Minister left out the NCC's statement that:

Ireland's overall loss in world market share is not simply a reflection of the growing role of developing economies in world trade. While China continues to gain market share globally, a range of developed economies also continue grow their international trading sectors, including Germany, Japan and the UK. Ireland's net contribution to world trade has fallen for each of the past four years.

The Minister lectures us about using selective statistics. I will cite another part of the Minister's speech which is factually incorrect. It is appalling for a Minister to get his facts so wrong. He claimed that Ireland had the lowest unemployment rates in the OECD after Denmark and the Netherlands. We checked those figures with the OCED today and using standardised, seasonally-adjusted unemployment rates the following countries, in addition to the Netherlands and Denmark, have low unemployment: Australia at 4.3%, Austria, 4.4%, Japan, 3.8%, Korea, 3.2%, New Zealand, 3.5%, Norway, 2.6%, and Switzerland, 3.6%. Should I continue? It really is extraordinary.

See this speech in context