Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I thank the leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, for putting forward this resolution, the purpose of which is to try to restore some sense of moral authority, not simply to the Government but also to the Dáil. In the good years of the Celtic tiger, this Government and its current Government partners have consistently ripped away Dáil debate and accountability. This is one of the few times that our economy is being debated in the House because the Government has become adept at debating the economy and giving the picture elsewhere. When Deputy Brian Cowen was Minister for Finance, he brought that particular art to its zenith. He was very rarely here to discuss issues. When he replied to parliamentary questions, he read pages of replies in order to leave as little time as possible for any honest debate or discussion. Part of what happened in the Lisbon treaty referendum last week is the whirlwind which the Government sowed by refusing to show moral authority. I refer to the cutbacks faced by many ordinary families, whether they are trying to decide how to meet the extra cost of fuel, whether diesel or petrol, or the extra costs in a myriad of other areas, particularly food and the supermarket shopping. There are not many members of the Government who push trolleys around supermarkets and there were not many members of the Government who stood outside supermarkets during the Lisbon campaign to talk to people coming out with their trolleys from the supermarket because if they did, they would know that ordinary families are finding it tougher to make critical decisions for themselves and their children when it comes to allocating resources and dealing with the downturn.

Mr. Owen O'Callaghan, that redoubtable Cork entrepreneur and builder and perhaps potentially one day, star of the tribunals, was quoted as saying in a headline interview in The Sunday Tribune three weeks ago that "There will be blood". I do not know if the Minister of State with responsibility for the Lisbon treaty realised that the blood which would be all over the place would be that of the Government's and that the people would give it a very rude awakening. In many ways the impression the Government has given in the past few days reminds me of the Bush Administration and its officials in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, an attitude of "We know what is best, we know how to deal with it", when in fact, we have not heard any concrete and serious attempt to address the issues.

I refer to Mr. Alan McQuaid of Bloxham Stockbrokers, one of the most respected commentators on the Irish economy. He stated in a report, "that based on our figures, we are in a stagflation environment and a recession is looming." The phrase, "stagflation", takes us back to the awful period of the 1970s, brought on in part by the oil crisis and the huge rise in the price of oil. It means we have stagnant growth in jobs and output. Not only are we experiencing stagnant growth in jobs and output we are also experiencing a severe loss of jobs across the board. Stagflation means stagnation plus inflation and our inflation rate is continuing to hover all the time just below 5%. The European Central Bank does not sound as though it will bring home owners any comfort anytime soon. Given its concerns about inflation, the ECB is indicating strongly it may well continue to raise interest rates over the next six to 18 months. The pressures on the Irish economy, and all the factors the former Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, indicated could go wrong in his last budget, all appear to have gone wrong together. In many ways we are facing all those negatives in a difficult situation. I have no doubt Ministers are being confronted daily by the Department of Finance in what appears to be a consistent demand to cut current spending by approximately 8% or back to 2006 levels. The issue is who will bear the brunt of the cuts. As far as the Labour Party is concerned, the brunt of the coming cutbacks, which the Government is planning but will not discuss with anyone, will be borne by the weakest people in society. In addition to being unfair it also makes for really bad economics. There are people in this society who have done extraordinarily well from the boom years, but we do not need to punish vulnerable people by making their difficulties even worse.

I worry about the participation of the Greens in this Government because they do not seem to have any economic dialogue with Fianna Fáil as the leading partners. Our health service appears to be drifting hopelessly without leadership. Almost daily, the Opposition raises the lack of information in the health service, the crisis in nursing homes and nursing home payments. The notion the Dáil can toddle off to the seaside with a bucket and spade, taking holidays for two or three months or more, is obscene. There is important work to be done in trying to sort out where we are. There are plenty of positive aspects in the economy and our people have a "can do", entrepreneurial spirit. We have well educated young people and the mechanism to build the knowledge economy. We can move from this negative period into a period of better growth in two to three years' time, but only if we play our cards right and if the Government does not act punitively towards the poorest people in our society.

In order to arrive at a consensus about how to do this, the Government must be accountable to the Dáil and be prepared to debate the economy. The Government has plans concerning the national development programme, which depend largely on public private partnerships. We heard about grandiose plans for the mega-prison in Thornton Hall, involving the destruction of an existing women's prison and its relocation to the Thornton site, but we do not even have an estimate of what that is likely to cost. We had clutches of overblown elements in the national development plan but we do not even have a forum in this House to discuss the plan in detail.

I have great confidence in Irish people's ingenuity and hard work, which they have exhibited in spades for the last 15 years. People ended up voting "No" to Lisbon because they were uncertain about their future, while the Government seemed to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to them. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, it could be said of the Taoiseach that to lose one referendum is unfortunate, but to lose two referenda is a disaster. Uniquely under his stewardship, the Taoiseach has played a primary role in the loss of two referenda.

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