Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

I say to Minister Lenihan-light that I will deal with that when I have more time. I am giving the statistics of macroeconomic management. Charles Haughey refused to deal with it and John Wilson was dispatched to give an increase to the nurses that was unsustainable. In the period from February 1982 to November of that year Mr. Haughey again refused to deal with the problems despite the exhortations of Ray MacSharry. In the period from 1987 to 1989 Fianna Fáil began the painful macroeconomic correction, not because it wanted to do it, but because Alan Dukes delivered the Tallaght strategy and it had no choice. From 1989 to 1992 Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats, led by Des O'Malley, endured the currency crisis to which it had partially contributed but was not responsible.

When I became Minister for Enterprise and Employment in January 1993, redundancies were occurring at the rate of 147 per week. By the end of that 1992 to 1994 Labour and Fianna Fáil Government we were beginning to see the turnaround. In the 1994 to 1997 rainbow Government we actually got in line to qualify to join the single currency, the euro, which transformed the country. However, as somebody said to me, during the 1970s and 1980s we had needed to avoid the rollercoaster ride that was the currency fluctuation, to move from being Italians, Spaniards or French and obtain the discipline of German low interest rates and low inflation. We got that with the single currency.

Unfortunately Charlie McCreevy as Minister for Finance continued to behave like an Italian, not recognising that there were now constraints preventing us from adjusting for inflation or for non-competitive costs by the devaluation of our currency. Nor did we have an independent central bank to correct us when we made mistakes. We had the ludicrous reduction in capital gains tax that boosted the economy. At one stage we were growing at 11% per annum. I know the Acting Chairman cannot participate in this debate, but he can reflect upon it.

With the infrastructural constraints we had in the economy at that time, the boost in economic activity to that extent was such that the construction industry was destroyed in the following way. We all remember it. People were saying that they did not want to know how much it would cost, they just wanted to know when the builder could start. That was the beginning of the demise of the construction industry as a competitive component of our economy. The first part of the Celtic tiger, which I am happy and proud to say I played some part in creating and which was handed over to Charlie McCreevy, was blown away. The blowing away only happened after 2002, as independent economic commentators will confirm.

Unfortunately this budget is in the same tradition of 33 years of economic mismanagement. It simply will not work. We will be back next year facing more difficult problems, confronting issues the extent of which we do not know at this time. The reality is that we have failed utterly to recognise the constraints within which we find ourselves, which are also the safeguards that have saved us from going down the path on which the Republic of Iceland has found itself. If we were still an independent economy with a separate currency this country would now be bankrupt. Some 300,000 people in Iceland have got permission to borrow $6 billion from the IMF and World Bank to rescue their economy. They will be in debt for generations as a result of the mismanagement of their economy and the hubris regarding how it might operate. That is the extraordinary legacy we will get from Fianna Fáil.

I propose to nominate the following extract for either the Booker prize or the Myles na gCopaleen literary award. Perhaps my Fine Gael colleagues might listen to this because if somebody can understand this and better still implement it they deserve a medal. This, along with the levy for car parking spaces, is the contribution of the Green Party.

From 1 January 2009, the provision of bicycles and associated safety equipment by employers to employees who agree to use the bicycles to travel to work will be treated as a tax-exempt benefit-in-kind. This tax exemption may only apply once in every 5-year period in respect of any one employee. There will be a limit of €1,000 on the amount of expenditure an employer can incur in respect of any one employee. The scheme may also be implemented via salary sacrifice arrangements, whereby an employee agrees to forgo part of her or her salary to cover the costs associated with the purchase of the bicycle and associated safety equipment. Where such salary sacrifice arrangements are implemented they must be completed over a maximum period of 12 months.

A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, you were once the occupant of the Custom House. It may come as a surprise, but not to you, to learn that so was Myles na gCopaleen, also known as Flann O'Brien. I am delighted to see his spirit is alive and well and he is on his bicycle. The sooner they get on their bicycles the better.

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