Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

We all know in this House that the country is confronted by the gravest financial crisis in the history of the State. This crisis is made a great deal worse by the Government's complete incapacity to bring forward a detailed coherent economic plan and strategy to get this country through the choppy waters with which we are now confronted. We have seen the Government introduce a variety of piecemeal fire brigade measures to deal with the fiscal crisis but there is no overall vision of any description. There is no direction or hope held out for the people who reside on this island other than the promises of greater tax, cuts in services, collapsing property values and the loss of a great many more jobs.

We are confronted by a problem, the enormity of which I am not sure is yet fully understood. The Government's condition of denial in which it refuses to accept any level of responsibility or accountability for the disaster with which we are now confronted adds an extra layer of problem that affects every man, woman and child living in the country. Deputy Brian Lenihan, the Minister for Finance, said something of importance today and I wish to quote him. He stated:

The Government must borrow €18 billion this year at far steeper interest rates to finance capital spending and also to meet the current budget deficit. In other words, we will have to borrow €4,500 for every man, woman and child in this State.

The Minister goes on to refer to this as dead money which should be going to pay for the public services we need. Why are we borrowing this amount of money and in particular why are we borrowing it at far steeper interest rates? We are borrowing it at far steeper interest rates because our international credit rating has collapsed. We are paying interest at unprecedented levels for funds the State needs simply to keep it functioning.

There are two primary reasons for this. The first is the appalling misconduct within our banking sector, the bad decisions made with regard to lending and the utter collapse of credibility in the manner in which our banks are managed. The second reason is that there is no international confidence in the Government. Outside this island, the Government is deemed to be grossly incompetent, bereft of economic direction and addicted to producing all sorts of documents making all sorts of promises which are uncosted and which have no credibility of any description.

What people outside this House do not understand is that not until we reform our banking sector and remove from the boardrooms of every financial institution in this State those who presided over the disaster within the financial and banking sector with which we are confronted but also not until the Government is driven out of office will there be any chance that our credit rating will improve on international markets.

The Government's very position in Government is continuing to damage the country's international economic credibility.

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