Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

I am often reminded of how great Fine Gael was when its former leader, Alan Dukes, initiated the Tallaght strategy in the national interest in the late 1980s. Over the last six months, during a more serious situation than that of the mid-1980s, Fine Gael has been far more negative than Fianna Fáil ever was in this House. I continue to have the highest admiration for Alan Dukes. It is clear that the attitude he took in the 1980s was not typical of Fine Gael, however. He is always cited by Fine Gael as a model politician who put the national interest first. I have often acknowledged in this House, and in person to Mr. Dukes, that he took the correct course of action. While his stance was a positive one, it is clear that it was an aberration from the norm in Fine Gael. His call to patriotic duty, if I can use that phrase, was warmly received in Fianna Fáil at that time. Unfortunately, most of Fine Gael remained true to its negative instincts and got rid of Mr. Dukes at the first available opportunity. Not much has changed in the Fine Gael Party in the intervening 20 years except perhaps that it is impossible to find even one person like Alan Dukes on the party benches.

I notice of late that Deputy Kenny is trying to portray himself as being more positive, offering all types of solutions to the current crisis. Clearly, he is getting the message from the public that it recognises the extent of the national crisis and that it wants positive solutions rather than the usual political point-scoring we have seen in recent years. However, all the solutions I have seen thus far from Deputy Kenny are either populist or totally ignore the size and extent of the problems we face. Yesterday, for example, he stood in the Chamber in his positive mode to propose a reduction in the VAT rate. He did not specify what that reduction should be but we may assume, given that he was referring to cross-Border shopping and the threat it poses to retail jobs, that he proposes to reduce it temporarily to the current United Kingdom rate. He may have used the word "concede" in this regard.

The issue of cross-Border shopping and the associated loss of retail jobs in the State is serious. However, the result of a reduction in VAT to the United Kingdom rate would be an increase in the revenue shortfall of €2 billion to €5 billion. If Deputy Kenny intended instead to propose that VAT be restored to the pre-budget rate, which was half a percentage point lower, the gap would be €2.5 billion. What type of solution is presented by either of these proposals? Deputies Kenny and Bruton and their Fine Gael colleagues criticised the Government at budget time for aiming at a budget deficit of 6.5%, arguing that it should instead be set at 5.5%. This would require at least an additional €1 billion of spending cuts at a time when Fine Gael opposed every single measure we proposed to cut expenditure. What type of solution is that?

We have listened for the last six or eight months to various Fine Gael spokespersons attacking the public sector, insisting that it is too large and that this and the previous Government were guilty of giving public service staff more money than they deserve. We have heard much talk from Fine Gael about reducing the number of public sector staff and reducing the pay bill. We were lectured consistently and insistently about fiscal rectitude until, lo and behold, decisions have to be made by the Government in regard to the public sector. Suddenly, Fine Gael discovers the public sector is not so bad after all and that its staff are not, after all, overpaid, with the possible exception of some of those fellows earning more than €100,000.

These are just some examples of the types of flip-flop policies pursued by Fine Gael. Instead of taking the realities of the current situation fully into account and putting forward balanced policy proposals, it will instead follow any populist notion. These examples underline how bereft that party is of authentic ideas and of the courage to make the necessary decisions we all face in the national interest in the coming weeks and months.

The proposals from the Labour Party are not much better. I have seen only two concrete proposals. The first is that we should have an election. If that is the best Deputy Gilmore can do after ten years in opposition, that is precisely where he should stay. Does he not remember the early 1980s when there were three general elections in 18 months, with the result that economic recovery was postponed for a decade? The other issue on which the Labour Party has focused is its suggestion that we should increase our borrowing. I will return to that point presently. We have heard the Labour Party make all types of sounds in the current difficult times but it is producing little by way of positive ideas or solutions. It opposed Government moves to protect the savings of thousands of workers and their families through the bank guarantee scheme. It opposed moves to provide capital for businesses so they could continue to employ people.

The Labour Party keeps talking about the necessity of getting the finances right to ensure the economy recovers, yet it has proposed to borrow more and more money. How is that for consistent economic logic? Its approach to current economic difficulties is dramatically different from that of its erstwhile partners in Fine Gael. The Labour Party proposes more borrowing and more spending while Fine Gael accuses the Government of spending and borrowing too much. Fine Gael is — or was until recently — advocating massive cuts in public expenditure and in the public sector. The Labour Party is diametrically opposed to those policies.

In these circumstances, a general election campaign and its aftermath would serve no useful purpose other than to return us to the conditions of the early 1980s. It would lead to increased uncertainty and delay the necessary programme of recovery already begun by the Government and outlined today and previously. Recent opinion polls may have gone to Deputy Gilmore's head because it seems he now wants to be Taoiseach. The one telling figure in all those polls is that 67% of the electorate are of the view that an election would serve no useful purpose.

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