Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The point is that we brought forward, before Christmas, a framework for economic renewal which sets out many action points in a range of areas in terms of the provision of jobs and investment opportunities, continued research and development and so on, namely, the strengths we have built up over the years and which should not be dismissed, even in the context of a recession. We have set out those action points and they will be acted upon in the coming weeks and months as we implement our policies.

However, in order to be successful in implementing any plan, we must bring some stability to the public finance position. We have set out a plan that will bring about an adjustment of some €16.5 billion between taxation measures and expenditure cuts in the next five years.

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