Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The Minister has made a number of important concessions in his reply. On budget day the Minister suggested the decline in GNP next year would be 1%. Four separate sets of very reputable economic forecasters have all indicated a 4% decline in the Irish economy in 2009. In his reply the Minister has accepted that it will be between 3% and 4%. This means that the Minister's budget day forecasts were basically hopelessly optimistic and it means that the basis of the figures in his budget has been rendered shambolic. The Minister had forecast a general Government deficit of €12 billion or 6.5% of GDP. In his reply he acknowledged that it is likely to be at least 7.25% of GDP next year, which would be at least €13.5 billion which, of course, would necessitate a significant range of additional borrowing. Would the Minister agree that we are sleepwalking into a devastating economic depression? Either the mandarins and number crunchers in the Department of Finance are not able to do the counting or they want to deny reality until it is too late thereby preventing an adequate and timely response.

The Minister said nothing about unemployment in his response. In his budget he suggested that the average unemployment figure for next year might be 7.3%. I put it to the Minister that is also hopelessly optimistic because although he points to the tax credits for research and development in the budget, where in the budget are the other measures to get people who have already lost their jobs back to work? The Labour Party has made a series of proposals to get people back to work. We have not yet heard any sort of strategy from the Government other than tax breaks, which are welcome, for research and development. Can the Minister offer any hope for people who have lost their jobs that they might get back to work next year?

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