Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I am not deaf. Two hours ago, I heard the Tánaiste, who is sitting beside the Taoiseach, tell the Irish people the public finances were "under control". Yesterday, I heard the Minister for Finance say there were stresses in the banking system. If the Minister for Finance is directly contradicting the Tánaiste, we are obviously not being told the full truth.

The reason the Government has not been able to fix the jobs crisis is that it has not been able to fix the banking crisis. The reason it has not been able to fix the banking crisis is that action has not been taken at Government level to repair the economy. What the world outside wants to hear is that the Government is taking decisive action and has three and five year plans to ensure people here understand the scale of the problem and people abroad appreciate that Ireland is taking action to restore financial credibility to our system.

The Tánaiste stated this morning that every Minister is spending a great deal of time in his or her Department trying to save every cent. It cost €190,000 to send the Minister for Health and Children, who is seated beside the Tánaiste, to the Superbowl, while €51 million has been spent on spin doctors in the Health Service Executive and €16,000 is spent each month on private advisers to the head of the HSE. Today it has been announced that a home for blind people in Drumcondra will be closed down. In addition, the HSE is deciding to cut €1 billion from its budget and we have not yet reached the end of February. Despite this, the Tánaiste tells us that we have reached the end of the cutbacks for this year and the pain has been taken.

The Minister for Finance says there are stresses in the banking system while the Tánaiste says the public finances are under control. I will put two suggestions to the Taoiseach. Is he prepared to instruct the National Treasury Management Agency today to call all the banks together to revise strategy in view of the stresses the Minister for Finance has spoken about and the difficulties we are having with reputational damage abroad? It is about time we faced up to the fact that what the Government has done so far has been selective, unfair and not comprehensive. The Government should scrap the budget it introduced in October——

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