Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The Finance Bill will help to secure and advance our enterprise economy while maintaining and enhancing pro-employment business tax reliefs which will support jobs.

I recognise that in a recession we will not be casualty free. There are people who are losing their jobs and the prospect of more people losing their jobs is great. We must, to the greatest extent we can, bring about a competitive position for our economy in the context of the resources available to us. This means we must continue with a public investment programme of the size of which I have spoken, namely, up to 5.5% of GNP in a recession — far in excess of what was contemplated by previous Administrations during boom times — as a percentage of what we are producing. The difficulty that will arise in this regard — we must be clear about this — is that we will need to make further economies on the current side. There is no way around that.

See this speech in context