Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Where is the strategy to clear out from our financial and regulatory systems the people who have so damaged trust in our banks? Without trust one cannot have confidence and if one does not have confidence our economy cannot develop and prosper.

We require a strategy to end the practice of Ministers and Taoisigh appointing friends to State boards and we must open up the appointments to scrutiny by the Oireachtas. We should implement the recommendations of the Competition Authority to break up the price gouging practices in the professions and the retail, energy and transport sectors. The Taoiseach has referred, in part, to some of these. We must break the stranglehold that public and private sector monopolists — Eircom, the ESB, CIE and Aer Rianta — have over the development of key infrastructure and networks vital to the country's development and put the consumer, individual and small business first.

We must bypass the vested interests that perpetuate a deeply unfair and grossly inefficient health system and transfer control of the considerable resources being spent on health care from HSE bureaucrats to patients and their doctors. It is necessary to focus on the clear opportunities and the potential that exists for job creation and the restoration of confidence.

What we are seeing now is the unworkable — rejected in advance by those whom the Government said were pivotal to its success — presented as a solution to problems that have become worse on a daily basis while this non-plan was in fermentation. This is the Taoiseach's way. He said he would do things his way. His way involves denial, indecision and delay and his way refused any notion of bipartisanship. On a number of occasions we offered opportunities for discussion on a way forward but they were all spurned and rejected by Fianna Fáil. Even as late as today, the philosophy and direction being followed by the Taoiseach has failed. Tragically, it is the ordinary taxpayer, home-maker and small businessperson who will pay for that failure.

Against the scale of change that is needed to bring about economic recovery, this proposal is a €2 billion sticking plaster designed to cover a gaping wound that has not been treated at its roots. It brings us all to a point where our country faces a financial crisis of an unprecedented scale. From that perspective, sadly the Taoiseach has evolved into a politician who will not listen to any advice or proposal. He is a leader without credibility and a Taoiseach without a mandate. That is because his party has been in Government for too long and has lost touch with what is happening on the streets.

The days of the Taoiseach's Government may well be numbered and the real cause of this is that he has been in power too long and is thus too removed from what is happening. When the people next get the opportunity, they will make a different choice.

For our part——

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