Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

We are three weeks away from the budget and various leaks have suggested there will be a deficit of up to €5 billion. The Minister has just said the tax returns for September — I presume the Minister gets weekly or more frequent returns — are continuing. Does this suggest we are now looking at a deficit of up to €7 billion, 7% unemployment and 300,000 people unemployed by the end of the year? Does the Minister agree that now we have the "R" word or the tag "recession" officially added to the tag of the Irish economy? Is this where Cowenomics has brought us? This is what the slump coalition has delivered in 15 months and there are 46,000 more people unemployed since Deputy Brian Cowen became Taoiseach.

Does the Minister agree that it was the stoking of the property bubble by the former Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Cowen, that caused the Cowen recession in Ireland? We know there is a generally difficult international economic climate, but the Irish recession is worse, steeper and will, possibly, last longer because this Minister's predecessor fed the property bubble with property-based tax breaks long after their sell-by date. Does the Minister agree that the bursting of the property bubble, caused by Fianna Fáil and Deputy Brian Cowen, is the cause of mayhem in our economy and has caused grave uncertainty for a number of our financial institutions?

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