Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

For the past decade we have been led by a dishonest Government whose only real triumph has been the triumph of perception over substance. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Ahern, yesterday wailed and moaned about not being able to attend a Council of Ministers meeting in Brussels. However, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, he did not attend the last Council of Ministers meeting before the Lisbon treaty referendum, which he should have attended. In fact, no politician from that Department attended the meeting. Ireland was the only country in the European Union that did not send a politician from the Department of Foreign Affairs. I understand that he has not attended the last two Council of Ministers meetings in Brussels and he may wish to share his reasons for failing to do so with the House, in view of the new found interest he espoused yesterday.

We are used to the term "as safe as the Bank of England" but that term is no longer with us. We may examine our own lives for tangible evidence of the economic slump in Ireland and I found it yesterday when I left home at 6.30 a.m. I would normally arrive in Dublin at around 8.15 a.m. but I was here by 7.40 a.m., some 35 minutes earlier than usual. Why was this the case? It was because there were no trucks on the road and very little traffic. It was not because this Government has come up with a great new public transport system — if anything public transport has deteriorated. It was because economic activity has come to a standstill on this Government's watch. Like the trout in the bucket of milk, it is not a case of "we are where we are", but rather "how did we get here and how will we fix the situation".

If this Government was on Wall Street it would be in liquidation by now — it is bankrupt in everything but name. FF stands for Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae, Fianna Fáil and freefall. This economy has been in freefall for some years thanks to this Fianna Fáil-led Government. For a political generation the Government surfed the construction boom and the global economy, spent money like a drunken sailor and carried out no reforms. The Government watched as our competitiveness tumbled and no thought went into expenditure. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, last night spoke of the €30 billion that has been spent on public infrastructure over this period but I guarantee that in the next decade many bestsellers will be based on that €30 billion and I look forward to their publication. The situation is epitomised by the kiosk on the front lawn of Leinster House. The Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Martin Mansergh, represents the Department responsible for this and I hope he will initiate an investigation into how the glass box kiosk cost over €1 million. It defies logic and it has happened in front of the Minister of State's eyes. I sincerely hope that one of the first things the Minister of State will do is look into how the money was spent.

It is not as though the Government was not warned about all of this:

There is a worrying complacency in Government about our enterprise sector. In the last four years employment in the exposed sector of our economy has been in decline. The rate of job loss has been more than double the rate of the mid 90s. Dramatic acceleration in the growth of public service employment and payroll costs has forced up taxation. Meanwhile the average price of exports since May 2002 has fallen by 15%. It is not enough to live off past successes and ignore the emerging challenges.

Those words were spoken in December 2004 by Deputy Richard Bruton during his budget speech. Where were the members of the Government parties at that point? They were in the Dáil bar and on the plinth, slapping one another on their backs for the great job they were doing on the back of the construction boom and the global economy. However, now the Government claims it is not responsible for the downturn — it takes credit but not flak. The things the Government can do have been outlined in the document "Recovery through Reform" and Deputy Varadkar has outlined how this can be accessed.

The Government must publish the unedited version of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report on the reform of public transport. It has been quoted to support certain policies but people do not have confidence in it and want to see the unedited version. Indeed, people do not have confidence in this Government. We need a comprehensive analysis of proposals, not a fire brigade approach. I commend this motion to the House.

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