Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

We are debating a defining motion. It defines the fundamental principles that are necessary to underpin a national plan of recovery. None of us in this House underestimate the gravity of the economic crisis we face. The banking scandal, the international economic downturn and the level of Government incompetence shown so far all combine to collapse public confidence. Unemployment is hammering families and communities across Ireland. By year end there will be more people unemployed than are employed in the entire public service. In our constituencies we are seeing the individual heartbreak of job losses and the fear of crippling debt. For the first time I have had to bring in a box of Kleenex tissues and leave it on the desk in my constituency office because so many tears are now shed when constituents come into me.

These are extraordinary times and they require extraordinary responses. So far the Government has failed to present the roadmap that is needed to get us through. The so-called pensions levy has been cack-handed in its construction. By its narrow focus it has fuelled a false divide between public and private sector workers. Yet, as our leader said last night, the real divide is between those who caused the crisis and those who are now paying the price.

Labour has set out in this motion our belief that social partnership offers the best way forward. The Government seems to want social partnership when times are good but thinks it can do without it when things are bad, which is folly. When there is an onus to pull together as a society and confront the challenge, we must rely on the great strength of partnership and solidarity. In this economic crisis people know that sacrifices are required of them but they also know that what is being imposed by the Government is unjust and the sense of anger and betrayal is palpable. Ability to pay should be the yardstick when sacrifice is required. Clearly, that is not the case now. Those on highest incomes are escaping scot-free while those at the lowest incomes are made subject to Government extortion.

There is a better way to get out of the mess. Recently, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions set out ten key initiatives which could frame a national recovery plan. They include taxation measures and innovative measures like a national recovery bond. These could be central to good governance and prudent public financing. I welcome too the document's emphasis on an immediate reduction in energy prices. Today, I raised this issue with the Taoiseach and I was disappointed that I received the same vacuous response that the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources gave last week.

There is an urgency about meeting the challenge, an urgency that the Government has misunderstood. Trampling on public sector workers is one approach but one more likely to succeed is an agreed national recovery plan based on the principles of solidarity and fairness. That is an important point to remember because we are all very touched by the cases of the individuals who have contacted all Members of this House. However, ultimately, it is the Government's responsibility to ensure that there is a roadmap pointing out the way forward and that people can support it in conscience. That is completely at variance with what the Government is doing now, which is to railroad through measures which are a blunt instrument at least and totally unjust and unfair at worst. If the Government intends to continue on that road we will see deeper division, more conflict and more unnecessary pain and heartbreak, which could and must be avoided. The strength we have with social partnership is being ignored by a Government that does not seem to know its way forward and refuses to look to anybody else for assistance in addressing the major challenge facing us all today.

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