Michael Kennedy (Dublin North, Fianna Fail)

I will continue with my speech if the Deputy does not mind, but if I have time, I will revert to that later.

At this point in time, it was necessary to have a tough budget. It is in the country's interest that we get our public finances back in order and bring competitiveness back into business. We must use every opportunity to educate the public about the current downturn and to warn them that the high expectations of the past must be tempered and lowered. The public should not be conned into believing that everything is rosy in the garden and that the Opposition would deal with the current situation better. Economists have told us that if the Fine Gael proposals enunciated in recent weeks were adopted, we would need to borrow an extra €4 billion. One can imagine the impact that would have on our economy, on jobs, on taxpayers and our GP cards.

Sacrifice is needed from all sections of society to maintain stability so that we will be in a position, when the global economy improves, to reintegrate our aims into Government policies and future budgets. In 1987, when the country suffered certain financial constraints, the Minister of the day, Ray MacSharry, took tough decisions. At the time, the people felt the measures taken were tough, but hindsight proved the decisions taken to be correct. It was no different in 2004 when once again tough decisions had to be made. Tough decisions were made then in the national interest.

As we discuss this 2009 budget, I believe we need to make tough decisions. We need to tell the public in clear, simple language the difficulties we have with our finances. We are €6.5 billion down this year and expect to be €9 billion down next year. This must be stated clearly so that the public understands why we must take tough decisions in the budget. If we do not, we will find great difficulty in getting ourselves back on track and being ready for the upturn in 2011.

With regard to the current financial situation, it must be recognised that Ireland is not the only country suffering a downturn. The whole world has gone through turmoil. There is a downturn in the global economy. We are aware of the situation with regard to the US banks and sub-prime lending and the difficulties it caused for the US, us, our neighbours in Britain and our European counterparts. We did not bring that upon ourselves. It was foisted upon us. Opposition spokespersons have commented that Ireland brought these troubles on itself, but our banks were not immune from the problem in the United States.

Ireland showed great leadership in bringing forward its bank bail-out legislation. We were the first to step in and say we would guarantee the savings of depositors. That was the right decision. It was done in the interest of stability and we got stability because of taking that decision. It is interesting that our European counterparts, some of whom criticised our decision at the time, have said it was the right way to go.

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