Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

The Fine Gael motion condemns the Government for its reckless economic policies over the past five years that have undermined the stability and competitiveness of the Irish economy and that are now sabotaging our country's ability to withstand tougher economic times. The motion sets out the changes we believe are now necessary to address the difficulties we face.

We have a problem that has spread fear throughout every corner of this country. There are already 75,000 additional people on the dole, who have never been on the dole before. By Christmas, the figure will be at least 100,000. Strong businesses are being forced to close their doors and say to dedicated workers that the game is over. We have seen young people pay huge prices for houses, the value of which will perhaps never again approach what they paid for them.

This is the crisis that has occurred yet there is an air of unreality in the House today with the Government debating changes in electoral boundaries. There is a huge and yawning gulf between the crisis in the country and the craving in the country for leadership and what we are being offered on the first day back after the recess. It is for that reason that we have set this as a critical time.

The Dáil should now debate the crisis affecting every business and family in the country. Together we should be working out what we need to do, what are the true figures we face, what are the options we have, what are the challenges we face and what are the things to avoid. That is the debate which should be occurring but it is not happening.

I refer to the impact of the recession on Ireland. We hear people talk about international factors. Let us be very blunt about it — the impact on Ireland is grossly magnified compared to other countries. Taking our nearest neighbour, there is a sense of crisis in the United Kingdom but there is at least a sense that somebody is beginning to show leadership. The deterioration in our growth is four times that which has occurred in the United Kingdom. The deterioration in our public debt is six times that which has occurred in the United Kingdom and the deterioration in our unemployment figures is 12 times that which has happened in the United Kingdom. There are international factors but this Government has exposed our people to pressures and threats to which people in other countries are not exposed.

It is alarming that after so many months, the Government has still not put a strategy in place to address this. People are beginning to despair that the Government has the capacity to offer any leadership in this situation. It is difficult to believe that the people who destroyed the economic fundamentals which underpinned the Celtic tiger are the ones who will suddenly come up with the answer to those problems.

Let us make no mistake about it — this Government has destroyed the economic model which was the core strength of our economy for so many years. That model was built on strong export competitiveness, on building up market share, on very prudent use of public money, on nimble Government capable of adapting to changing circumstances and on cost competitiveness. Every one of those has been destroyed by a Government which decided that its priority was the pursuit of electoral politics.

It ran budgets which expanded each year under the Taoiseach, Deputy Brian Cowen, when the need was not there. It acted as cheerleader for a property boom which was plainly unsustainable. It made huge public spending commitments on the back revenues coming from property which are now gone. It has caused the worst deterioration in our public finances in the history of this State. In 2006, we were in surplus to the tune of €2 billion but at the end of this year, we will be in deficit to the tune of €11 billion. We will be way outside our commitments under the Stability and Growth Pact.

That has happened because the Government has not paid attention to the basic lessons one must learn if one is to manage a small, open economy successfully. One must be prudent in one's use of public money, one must spend in a way that is sustainable, one must hunt down waste and inefficiency and one must ensure that cost competitiveness is at the heart of one's strategy. All those habits, which were learned the hard way in the 1980s and 1990s and which created a dynamic economy, were destroyed in a very short period of time by this dangerous flirtation with the property boom and the friends in the property sector and which has brought this country to its knees.

Ireland is the most exposed country to these threats coming from the international crisis simply because the Government sabotaged our capacity to do what a government should do in times like this. The Government should now have the resources to look at accelerating our infrastructural investment and not at slowing it down and to look at new opportunities to create employment and not talk about cutting services left, right and centre.

We should look at what other countries have done. There is a salutary lesson. Our Government refused to recognise the gathering storm clouds. Last year's budget was wholly inappropriate and at the time I described it as a hit and hope budget. It was a hit and hope budget hoping that we would have the so-called "soft landing" when the soft landing was clearly not going to happen. Those who warned that would not happen were treated with disdain. Their warnings fell on deaf and arrogant ears.

The Government persisted in denial right through the budget formation to the middle of the year when it was brought to its senses by the collapse of tax revenue. A feeble response came in July. It was the sort of response one would expect from a child. Far from looking at the business of Ireland Inc., looking for the successful parts of public sending and deciding on the priorities to survive, it said let us cut 3% off the payroll everywhere so the most successful elements of our public service were put under the same pressure as the ones which should have been abandoned. Instead of doing a forensic search for waste and ensuring we made decisions which would value the things that would be important in difficult times, there was this mindless cutting everything a little bit, but it came unstuck.

We are back here two months later and all the talk about this being a temporary little adjustment, that the fundamentals are strong and that we would be back on the horse's back in no time has been abandoned. Where is the strategy? All we have had from the Government is an upgrading of the storm to force four. We all know that, as do people who are losing their jobs, people who are struggling to pay for their houses and people who are folding their businesses. It is only the Government, which has been in this bubble, that did not realise what was happening. We need a government capable of leadership but that has not come forward.

We should contrast that with what happened to the Spanish Government. It was faced with a similar situation. It did not go off on holidays and put up a "do not disturb" sign because it was too busy. The Prime Minister of Spain called back his Ministers from holidays. He told them they should be at their desks with their computers powered up and that they should look at what was necessary to get Spain through the recession. That is what they did. They brought forward new infrastructural packages, they said top earners in the public sector would have to take a pay cut and they said there would have to be a tax stimulus to get things going. Now commentators believe Spain will get through these difficulties without a recession. That is not the situation in Ireland.

Our Government sat on its hands, went off on holidays and appointed a few task forces and decided to wait to see what they came up with when it came back. That is not leadership or what this country craves at this time. Many measures could be taken now and not in three weeks at budget time. Measures could be taken now to open up sectors which have been protected for too long so that we could have vibrant competition and start to bring down costs and create new opportunities in renewable energy and bus transport if Government would only move on some of the things it said it would do for years. We need to reinvent our economy and to look at the opportunities and build for them now. We must make solid investments in areas that will reap returns, such as interconnectors, broadband and areas that can create a knowledge economy. However, the Government is ignorant of all of this. Its strategy for e-Government collapsed on its face. Under the Government's strategy for the knowledge economy, we dropped from being the leading country in Europe in terms of e-Government to 17th on the list. That happened under a strategy of change.

We failed dismally under the Government strategy to address climate change. That strategy was launched in 2000, but after eight years it has had a zero impact on our emissions. The penny must drop for Ministers that when strategies go wrong when there is plenty of money available, mismanagement is going on. The trouble with the Government is that it will not wake up to reality and does not show any understanding of the mistakes it has made that have put us in this hole and made us the most exposed country in Europe.

Until the Government wakes up and realises that it is its mistakes, its reckless expansion of spending on unsustainable revenues, its acting as cheerleader for an unsustainable property boom and its destruction of our exporting sector by the high-cost environment it created, we can have no confidence that it has the diagnosis to get us out of this hole. If it had, we would already see the signs of leadership and see investment in training for people who are being displaced so that they will not be long-term unemployed. We would see the prioritising of investments and see the publishing of cost-benefit analyses that showed which investments were priorities and should be protected at all costs. We would see a Government in control and taking leadership.

Even in the case of the financial crisis, the Government is dragged kicking and screaming to respond. It is only at the last minute that it comes up with something to protect depositors, although it was clear 11 months ago when Northern Rock went down that Irish savers were exposed, with less protection for their savings than was the case for savers in the United Kingdom. It was obvious we should move, but the Government would not move alone and felt it had to wait for some committee in Europe to decide.

The Government must take leadership on issues that matter to Ireland. It is Irish people who are losing their jobs, Irish businesses that are on the line and the Irish nation that needs leadership from the Government. The tragedy is that there is a growing sense that the Government does not know what it takes to change Ireland, to reinvent the economic model we have destroyed and to reform public services in a radical way where it is performance that matters. Failure to perform has consequences and Ministers and public servants must take responsibility for what happens. Choice must be generated within the public sector so we have alternatives and variety that will allow the best options to be developed.

We have not had that change; instead, tragically, we have seen time and again the Government take the soft option. Benchmarking was a unique vehicle capable of driving a massive reform package within our public service, but what did the Government do about it? It sat on its hands and refused to put a reform package on the table and decided to dish out the money anyhow through the ATM machines. We have paid in spades for that, not only the €1.3 billion it cost, but by not getting the reform.

Even more seriously, we needed the talents of our public servants focused on delivering real change to the way we deliver services, so that we could, with the significant moneys spent, ensure that young people who were suicidal and elderly people in accident and emergency departments got help. That did not happen and instead of driving our public service to deliver at the front line, their energies were wasted and they were demoralised through a decentralisation programme that was dreamt up on the back of a betting slip. This has sabotaged our public service and demoralised compassionate and committed people who should and could be driving serious reform. That has not happened over the past number of years because the energy and talents of many public servants have been wasted in fruitless moving around and the destruction of skill bases built up over years.

This has been a Government that has not understood the importance of reform, change and the building of a strong, competitive and nimble economy with a public service to match that would meet the ambitions of the people generating the revenues to fund it. That is the fatal error and the reason we are in such a hole. It is the reason we need strong leadership, which, sadly, is not forthcoming from the Government.

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