John Perry (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael)

Last week, one of the national newspapers featured a piece by a commentator which concluded with the words, "As we approach the inferno we see Dante's injunction: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here."" Has the nation come to this point?

Irish people have a tendency to swing between the outer limits of optimism and pessimism and spend little time in the middle ground. In retrospect, it is clear we have passed through a period of foolish optimism. However, we must avoid entering a phase of hyper-critical self-flagellation, depression and fatalism in which everything appears to be outside our control.

Throughout our history, we have experienced bad and poor times but a sufficient number of people had faith and conviction in the future of the country to allow us to muddle through. This is also the case at present. Ireland has much going for it. It is a relatively rich country with a good standard of living and well educated population. Irish people can also muster a real sense of community when needed. The reality of life, especially in a crisis, is that we can only do the best we can. Somehow we will muddle through but in trying to find ways to address the present crisis we must face reality. The Government, too, must face reality because citizens' confidence in it has been shattered. The future of the country is at stake and confidence in the country and Government can be rebuilt only through facing reality and dealing honestly with the reasons we found ourselves in the current mess.

In my experience in business I have found dealing with a crisis to be simple. It is akin to tackling a house on fire in the sense that one can either react by trying to put out the fire with whatever tools one has at one's disposal or one can listen to other voices who tell us we should sit down and review the position in a series of meetings and then, armed with all available information, make a plan to put out the fire and rebuild the new house. Crises demand real and immediate action.

As a country we face one major problem, namely, the growing national economic crisis and the loss of thousands of jobs every month. We also have a massive hole in the Government finances and a banking crisis. The latter is a sideshow when viewed in the context of the well-being of the national economy. The preservation of jobs must, therefore, be our top priority.

The Government appears to be almost relieved that the focus is on banks, bail-outs and public sector levies as these distract from the crisis it caused in the national economy. The first and immediate step to restoring the national economy must be to rebuild consumer confidence in order that domestic demand can lead to recovery. A fundamental problem is that in Ireland, as in most other countries in the world, people are frightened and domestic demand has declined, leading to further falls in Government tax income. In our case, this is evident in declining revenue from VAT.

To regenerate consumer confidence an essential first step is for the Government to demonstrate, for as long as it remains in power, that its members are people of genuine character and substance. I do not say this to score political points. The Government must clearly accept responsibility for its part in creating the mess in which we find ourselves. To show it is capable of genuine leadership in this crisis, it must first show it is able to deal honestly and openly with reality. If trust is to be rebuilt, it must acknowledge its responsibility for its part in the making of the current crisis. Why should we expect anyone else to squarely face reality when the Government still refuses to acknowledge reality? It must tell the truth about what happened and place the facts in the public domain to enable us to start to address fundamental issues and restore confidence in the economy. If it is not able to do this, it must step aside and allow the Opposition to try to solve our current problems.

On consumer spending, I do not belong to those who believe governments should spend ever increasing amounts of borrowed money to prime the economy. All past evidence shows that an excessive proportion of such additional consumer expenditure is spent on imports, thus making a minimal contribution to the national economy. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that consumers are using any spare cash they have to add to savings or to pay off debt. An additional financial stimulus using more borrowed money would have little direct impact on the national economy.

The critical element of any solution must be to address the issue of jobs. We must take all possible steps to protect existing jobs. Ireland is an open, exporting economy and only the manufacturing sector can provide the volume of quality jobs to give full employment. Companies are closing down and jobs are moving abroad, in some cases to other European Union countries as opposed to low wage economies elsewhere. This demonstrates that our costs are seriously out of line with competitor countries. We must reduce costs in the public and private sectors and State agencies must work intensively with local businesses to help protect jobs. There is no other solution in the short to medium term. Stimulating job creation must focus on local enterprises, including the critically important retail sector.

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