Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The banking sector which in many ways was responsible for so much angst is now in a bizarre relationship with the Government. We do not yet know the extent of the bad debt or rolled up interest in that sector. I hope that when the Government publishes its scheme tomorrow, all of that detail will be made available so that we will know to what we are signing up.

This Government continues to take money out of the economy rather than getting better value for the money it spends. It commits us to massive borrowing each and every day, with more to follow next year, up to €13.5 billion. It is horrifyingly over-optimistic for next year. This budget is disastrous.

The so-called plans that were set out yesterday are not plans. There was no detail or forecast and no clear method for reforming the public sector spelled out. Some of the best people I have met in my life work in the public sector. The Government will make the taxpayer pay for many of them to become redundant because it says they should not have been employed in the first place. The former Minister for Finance, former Deputy Charlie McCreevy, increased current spending and the Government hired 30,000 more public servants, most of them in administration. The Government now tells the taxpayer that it plans to get rid of those staff because they should not have been employed in the first place but it provides no detail as to how this will be achieved. This process will drift and drift, as the Taoiseach knows.

The reality is that for an easy political ride, this Government mortgaged the country to the builders, developers and speculators. It created a new elite, which is now demanding that the taxpayer bails it out. The Minister for Finance has a name for this. It is called patriotism. The new definition of Fianna Fáil patriotism is war on the middle classes and businesses and a failure to protect the vulnerable. This is a disastrous budget, for which the Government will pay the price.

See this speech in context