Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

This debate is taking place in a vacuum. The Government has put no proposals on the table. Is it any wonder that the country is frightened? The people are scared. They know that things are bad and believe they will get worse and they have been concerned since last July.

Last July, the Sunday Independent invited me to put into an article comments that I had made on the radio. I published the following on 13 July 2008:

The economic and financial crisis facing Ireland is much greater than the Government will admit. The Taoiseach Brian Cowen was Minister for Finance when the storm clouds began to gather. But he ignored the warning signals and the advice from independent commentators.

Decisive action is required immediately — above and beyond the timid measures which were put through the Dáil on Thursday. Honest leadership is now needed. This government has been basking in the sunshine of the economic success which it inherited 11 years ago. I am not sure it has the experience or management skills to get us out of the crisis.

But here is what has to be done. The Government needs to drastically cut current expenditure so as to bring it into line with the tax revenues which our declining economy is generating.

That will ensure that we will operate within the budgetary rules of the eurozone currency.

But it must also generate confidence and hope that our economy starts to grow again. This means substantial investment in our productive infrastructure.

The Government went on holiday for the whole of August. Its members played golf up and down the west coast, and were on beaches and elsewhere while other governments were dealing with the problem. They returned in September and realised that the country was in panic.

It introduced a stunt budget that backfired desperately on it. The Book of Estimates was rushed, inadequate, badly worked out and is out of date. The revenue figures it calculated for the budget for 2009 were ahead of the October and November figures that would have been available had the budget been presented in the first week in December. By Christmas, the end of year revenue figures marked the worst fiscal record in the history of this State.

The Government is in denial and we are wandering around frightened. That fear is compounded by the inaction this month. Today is 28 January. The Taoiseach said he wanted a month to sort things out. The discussions continuing with the social partners and the parade of people in and out of Government Buildings is compounding the fear because the Government seems incapable of acting. Today we should not be debating the fantasy programme launched in Dublin Castle on the day the Dáil adjourned before Christmas but the outcome of discussions with the social partners about what we, not the social partners, must decide. We are not having that debate.

We are running out of time. Every week the Government delays decisive action, the lack of confidence in its and the economy's ability to generate the measures necessary to correct our problems costs us money. When we joined the euro the cost of borrowing money was the same as that for the German Republic. That has spread by 2.5% for the same currency, borrowing in the same currency. That shows how little confidence the rest of the world has in this Government's ability to do the business.

I listened to the Taoiseach's contribution at the outset of this debate. He said: "The challenge is severe but the Government has a clear strategy which we will continue to implement." That is fantasy, lies or delusion, or perhaps all three because there is no clear strategy and it is not implementing anything. The Taoiseach went on to refer to the unexpectedly rapid collapse of activity in the construction sector in Ireland. That was not unexpected, as it has been predicted for the last four or five years. Some of the commentators were saying that it would be a hard landing, and that it would have severe effects. This is a Taoiseach who is in denial. He then had the arrogance to state that there is little point at looking back at how some of this might have been anticipated or avoided. Who is in charge here? Who has been responsible for the last 11 years? Who rejected the valid, well-intended and constructive criticisms that came from this side of the House? Who asked the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, to wake up and smell the coffee? Who accused the Labour Party of talking down the economy?

We are dealing with a group of people who do not know how to solve our problems. Why should we trust the recovery of the economy with the people who got us into this mess? The Minister for Community, Rural, and Gaeltacht Affairs spoke about developing the resources of our rural economy to enhance access so that we could have rural tourism. He stated that legislation to bring that about is not necessary, yet we have the worst access of any European country to the uplands of this island, while the farming associations are blocking attempts to have reasonable access to them. The Minister, a pleasant and gentle man, is in denial. We have a fantasy Cabinet that thinks it is governing, when it is steering the ship of State to the rocks of destruction.

It is not about all shoulders to the wheel, because the people driving the car do not know how to steer it. We need a change of Government at the top, but we also need hope and creative thinking. In an article I wrote for the Sunday Independent on 11 January, based on an interview I gave immediately after Christmas, I stated the following:

But we also need new thinking and innovative ways of delivering public services. For example, why can't the surplus staff in the public service help out in the Department of Social and Family Affairs, so that the recently unemployed workers will not have to wait up to 12 weeks to get their Job Seekers Benefit, for which they have paid with their PRSI contributions?

Instead of introducing expensive redundancy packages for surplus managers in our health service, why can't they be transferred to our 800 post-primary schools to help with the administration and finance of those large organisations, so that qualified teachers and educational staff can stay in the classrooms and deal with the concerns of students?

I rest my case on that point and I know that Deputy Costello will continue in this vein. We have a Government that is in denial and that is incapable of generating the successful solutions that we need for the economy.

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