Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

I am pleased to have an opportunity of saying a few words on this motion so ably proposed by my colleague, Deputy Joan Burton. It is deeply disappointing that so few Deputies from the Government side are present to debate our options as the economy reaches a turning point. In recent years, one of the most depressing aspects of discussion of the economy was listening to Ministers making statements in the House that were akin to hearing yesterday's rather than tomorrow's weather. Having reeled off gross figures of expenditure across various headings, their statements were regurgitated for backbench Government Deputies.

Many of those observing the economy are deeply anxious about the future and seek an economic debate. They are badly served by the media which do not comment on the economy but indulge in a type of forecasting of how bad the position will be. Thus one reads or hears what I describe as populist effusions which have nothing to do with economics. For example, we have discussions in which bookmakers refer to "breakfast roll man" at a time when serious issues need to be discussed.

I will use the few minutes available to me to raise some of these issues. It is time we spoke directly. The country is about to pay a horrific price for the close connection between the speculative section of the building industry and Fianna Fáil, the major Government party. The people who are skilled at building houses and know about space and costs and how to place one brick on top of another did not inform Fianna Fáil Party's policy on housing. Instead, on every occasion and in every budget more and more resources were made available to create almost a tax-free run at generating speculative wealth. The invitation from the republican party was not to be ambitious for the Republic or people in general but for oneself. Thus, conversations revolved around whether people had got a piece of this or that action. That is what one heard as people ate and drank more and indulged in a sea of excess.

As we approach the end of our longest period of economic growth, few commentators are able to make the elementary contrast between the five years of growth between 1995 and 2000 based on manufacturing exports and the five year period thereafter. The elementary feature of growth based on manufacturing exports is that goods must be made to be sold in a process that creates jobs. Economic growth during the period from 2000 to 2005, on the other hand, was based on the revaluation of the property base. Those who gain in that circumstance are those who have been speculating madly in a tax free environment for speculation.

Before the previous general election, the Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrats parties engaged in blackmail, telling voters they were the parties which had provided the jobs carrying hods and applying plaster. The expense of the houses built did not matter, nor did whether nurses, gardaí and those on average incomes were forced to live miles from their workplaces. That is the madness that occurred and those are the unsavoury connections which were responsible for it. Dr. Bacon produced three reports but the Government threw away those it did not want, simply because they did not suit the speculative clique funding the Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrats parties.

We must consider the role of the social economy as we enter into a threatening period with the second lowest level of protection in the European Union. The commentators and Government fellow travellers could not see the contradiction between claiming to be the second richest country in Europe or the world and having the second lowest level of social protection. Thus the most vulnerable are at the bottom of the pile and have been joined by those who have been made insecure owing to high mortgage repayments. The banking system, which colluded with this speculative racket that ran through Government policy, is threatening all sorts of people as it seeks repayments of loans.

I heard one of the most pessimistic forecasters among Irish economists assert that the engine of growth, the building industry, has disappeared and there is nothing to replace it. Deputy Burton outlined some areas in which replacements could be found. For example, a Government which took responsibility for politics would engage in debate on how to use capital expenditure under the national development plan to provide for the infrastructural needs of the social economy. Deputy Burton cited other examples, including schools.

We need jobs in the caring economy. In most versions of the social economy, one spends money in health not only to cure people but also to care for them to ensure they do not need high levels of expenditure on illness. Instead of a health strategy, the Government has offered an illness industry. There are many actions we can take, even with our low and threatened base, to turn the situation around. We must invest in infrastructure and devise strategies to ensure skills are upgraded rather than lost and new opportunities are created in other forms of the economy. We have had neither an analysis nor a policy. It is a disgrace that so many people are interested in publishing gossip about the economy rather than continuing the hard work of economic analysis done since the time of Lord Keynes.

I am pleased to note Government representation in the House has doubled with the arrival of the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, who will be aware of the contribution made by Lord Keynes. Politicians are elected to offer economic options and discuss, debate and choose between options for the connection between the economy and society. This debate is absent. Instead, we have a shabby betrayal of a republic. The alternative, which would come from a social economy, would be an inclusive republic with an equality of citizenship. What we got was bits and pieces with speculative ghosts haunting the Government in power. Occasionally the previous Taoiseach suggested that people volunteer for social purposes some of the shrinking time left to them in a country with the longest commuting journeys in Europe.

We can create jobs in many areas, not only in immediate transfer to the capital programme, the caring society and the great opportunities available in green industries, of which the Scandinavian countries have availed. The connection between society and politics is at the heart of democracy and a social guarantee must be given in health, education and elsewhere that there is a level below which people will not be allowed to sink. Such a guarantee is not available and thus one has the crude measure under which, for example, the Department of Health and Children has asked the Health Service Executive to recover €100 million, irrespective of from where it secures it. Thus right across the budgets, people will be threatened for such elementary things as home help. Do the republicans stand over the cuts in home help and the removal of respite care? Do the republicans say that people in this great developed republic, the second richest in the world, are not entitled to the most minimal care in their old age?

People should ask how they did in the great times when all became so rich. Who should people trust now when the guff is flying all around the place for the strategy which will enable us to simply survive? More important, people should vote for a politics which is republican, inclusive and based on equality. They should lay the foundations for the social economy and support a politics that will build it.

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