Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Kenny asked me three sets of questions, the first of which concerned what governments are doing internationally, that is, what Presidents Bush, Sarkozy and others have been doing in the past few weeks. In response, that is precisely what we did in the first week of December last. The Tánaiste announced a budget that allocated 6% of GDP to a capital programme, amounting to an injection of €8.6 billion into the Irish economy this year, which is a record high. The programme is mainly funded by our current budget surpluses and will make sure that we can drive the economy in a wide range of areas while the international slowdown occurs. It will have the effect of a financial and fiscal stimulus of approximately 1.5% this year. That is exactly the type of action that international governments are now looking at, but thankfully we moved on it two months ago.

With regard to the efficiency review, which the Fine Gael spokesman on finance also raised, I welcome the fact that in the Tánaiste's speech, he moved the next phase of the efficiency review, to ensure that we do not have any waste and that we can gain more efficiencies from our staff and across the range our services to inject more money into the economy. We have continued public sector reform in every way, whether it is in the benchmarking report or elsewhere.

On the matter of the agencies, we have already stated that we are in the process of reviewing them. They will all have their own difficulties but I will welcome support when they come. On FÁS, we have a national skills strategy and a strategy on science, technology and innovation. In the current national development plan, we are investing €8.2 billion. I agree that we must upskill our workers. I have every sympathy and concern and will do all I can with regard to Allergan. The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Martin, has already had a meeting to discuss the situation and we will do all we can. This decision is based on the Costa Rican plant, a newer and more modern plant that has spare capacity and where the wages and salaries are far lower than ours. It sees a competitive advantage for itself in the world market in moving to that plant. Obviously, this creates problems for us. It is maintaining other sectors of its industry in Ireland, but it is not maintaining its cosmetic surgery and reconstructive plants. That is a severe shock and hardship to the individuals involved, but we have a period to try to deal with the issue over the next year or 18 months. We took action today to try to assist and work with the workers of Allergan to deal with the situation.

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