Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

What is, perhaps, as worrying in this debate as the economic figures themselves, is that there is no recognition whatsoever from Government that its mishandling of our economy has contributed to this fiscal crisis. Not for the first time, the Government is in denial, blaming everything and everyone but itself for the state of the public finances. It is the fault of international factors beyond its control and if it had not been for all those doom merchants talking down the economy, things would not be half as bad. Unfortunately, the Government has waited, blind to and refusing to accept the reality of deep problems developing in the economy, and doing little or nothing to remedy the situation until now, when we have been confronted with the shocking and undeniable facts that surround the collapse in our financial revenue streams.

However in typical Fianna Fáil self-righteous fashion, when we in the Opposition call it as it is and point the finger squarely and directly at the primary cause of this boom to bust fiasco, we are accused of playing politics. The problem with that defence is that we were also accused of playing politics when, after each of the last three budgets, Deputy Bruton warned of Ireland's waning competitiveness, over-reliance on tax revenue from unsustainable growth in a booming property market and increases in current expenditure that were more than two and half times our economic growth rates. Deputy Bruton also warned of the Government spending a fortune on setting up more than 250 extra quangos to do the job that many Government Departments could and should have been doing and creating a bigger and bigger public service wage bill without any regard to efficiency gains or ensuring value for money.

Our Taoiseach, while Minister for Finance, kept increasing current expenditure as if the boom would last forever. Now we are all suffering the consequences of having to slam on the brakes, as the Government flounders to find a way to make the savings needed to merely limit the damage in terms of how much this country will have to borrow this year to pay the bills. Nobody on this side of the House is claiming that international factors do not contribute to the challenges the Government faces. However, the failure to prepare for an economic shock and the inevitable slowdown, during a decade of unprecedented wealth creation, will be a lasting criticism and indictment of this Government.

Other countries are affected by the same international conditions as Ireland but are not suffering to anything like the same extent that we are, despite what Ministers repeatedly say. Unemployment fell in 24 of the 27 EU member states in the last year. No other country in the OECD is threatened by negative growth. So let us nail this lie that Ireland is helpless in the eye of an international storm of economic problems.

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