Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

Last night, with echoes of Churchill, the Minister for Finance called the nation to arms to, as he said, fight for our economic future. His rhetoric may well have been Churchillian but his actions to date are more like Colonel Blimp. The totality of the Minister's plan for national recovery is unfair, unthought-out and will divide the nation at a time when common effort is required to solve the genuinely enormous problems we face.

To begin with, we must recognise why we are in this mess. That is the question citizens throughout the country want to hear answered first. Since 2001 a speculator's economy was deliberately created to encourage greed, cheered on by Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrats Governments, who wanted light-handed regulation and control and who regarded timely warnings from these benches as pinko socialism to be scorned and laughed at and who exhorted the nation to party on. Some did party on — and some continue to party — not, however, the vast bulk of our public servants who got mortgages for houses at inflated prices and to build homes, who paid their taxes and lived ordinary lives, not extravagant ones.

The country is in a grave and serious place. We, on this side of the House know that full well. The people want those who are responsible for bringing us here to at least acknowledge their role in the disaster. World economic events have made matters worse but our basic vulnerability was home grown. First, there must be an accounting, politically and within the banking and speculative classes. Only then, can one ask the nation with any legitimacy to put our collective shoulder to the wheel. Second, there must be a plan, one that maps a route to a stable economy that involves all in society and that is fair in terms of its scope and ability to pay.

Last night the Minister for Finance said that the Government plan was to baldly introduce cutbacks amounting to €2 billion. That is no plan. Even today the Minister admitted on Question Time that he would be lucky to get €800 million but the nice, balancing economics means that it can be accounted for as €2 billion. There is no confidence in the so-called plan. Basic taxation decisions that need to be made now are being long-fingered to the Commission on Taxation, the report from which will be implemented some time next year. Things have changed utterly in this economy and in this nation. Everything has to be thought through again, including our governance, our delivery systems for public services, our support systems and oversight of business, how our professions operate for the public good and much more.

This imbalanced levy, targeted at one section of society, will do nothing to solve our problems. The country deserves better than that. We need to reconstruct the proposal in the context of a truly comprehensive plan and bring the whole country together in the common vital objective of restoring our national finances.

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