Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

For four years the Taoiseach, then Minister for Finance, had the opportunity to show courage, to embrace reform in the public service, to ensure that the public money we spent made a difference to people at the front line, and he refused to make that courageous decision. He sat on his hands. He allowed spending increase with no reform. That is what we are paying for today. That is why people are seeing borrowing at historic levels, huge increases in taxation and the most vulnerable being asked to chip in more. That will not be forgiven either.

It is a tragedy that, once again, a new generation is asked to mortgage its future to pay for the mistakes that Fianna Fáil has made in Government. The culture of the Galway tent, the culture of spending when you have it is what has got us into this hole. It has damaged the fundamentals of our economy and we will pay for it in the years ahead.

Our problems today do not come from international difficulties. They come from a Government that has sabotaged the capacity of this economy to withstand that storm which was inevitable. Why is the mighty Celtic cruiser the first to hit the rocks in this recession, the first to see its public finances run into difficulties? It is because the captain and the officers, who were on the deck and who we expected to look out for our interests, ignored the storm warnings, overloaded the vessel and neglected to maintain the engine, and now we are drifting towards the rocks.

The reason is clear. It is the way in which the Government pumped up public spending on the back of unsustainable revenues. It is the way they allowed the property bubble to destroy our strong exporting economy. It is the way they abandoned hard-learned habits of preventing waste in public spending. That is why we are in this predicament. It has nothing to do with the international factors.

Even today, with everything obvious out there, the Government remains in denial about the underlying causes of the difficulties that we face. While other countries have felt the force of the international shock waves, it is not they who are deep in recession. It is not they who find their public finances turned upside down. It is only Ireland that has seen that. Where other governments, like the Spanish, in particular, took the courageous decisions to make changes, the Minister sat on his hands.

Already we see the human casualties that have come from the Government's approach to managing the economy and to failing to prepare. More than 80,000 people are already in the dole line, terrified for their future. There are thousands of talented businesses turning to loyal workers telling them they must let them go, and they are fearful that soon they will have to shut the doors and call in the receiver. There are hundreds of thousands of families struggling to pay mortgages on houses which will never see the value again that they paid for them, and they are sick with worry that it is their job that will be the next to go. There are old people looking on today at the closure of hospital beds and the freezing of home-care packages, frightened that the services they need will not be there when they turn to look for them.

The ultimate test of this budget is whether it has looked out for those families. Has it avoided the soft options? Has it protected the most vulnerable? Has it made major structural changes in the public sector that will avoid waste? Is it part of a wider plan to create a smarter economy? The sad answer to all of those questions is "No".

Let us remember the context against which this budget has come. Since 2000, the Government increased current public spending by 140% or €32 billion — €20,000 extra for every family in the country. They increased the numbers in the public service by 72,000, but they delivered little or none of the commitments they made to improve the quality of public services.

They grew careless about how they spent money because they never really had to confront the taxpayer with the bill. The explosion in tax revenues from the property boom filled the gap and they went on blissfully unaware of the reality of the wasteful spending they incurred.

This bonanza in spending was not costless. Someone did pay. It was financed on the backs of hundreds of thousands of people who entered into 35-year mortgages and who now are struggling to pay that money. They are carrying the can. Young people have carried the can for Government waste. These miraculous revenues that were flowing in were not from some goose laying the golden egg. These were from real families who are now faced with the reality of a Government that did not manage the economy prudently. They are the ones whose backsides are exposed now, who are facing the real dangers and the cold winds of this economy.

Like the bankers so rightly now in the dock, this Government built long-term commitments on short-term revenues. They threw caution to the four winds. They put their self-interest ahead of their responsibilities. The banks bailed out the developers. The Government bailed out the banks. Now the taxpayer is being asked to bail out the Government. Who will bail out the taxpayer, that is what I want to know?

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