Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)

Tá áthas orm labhairt ar son rún an Rialtais anocht. Bheinn sásta i ndáiríre labhairt ar son rún an fhreasúra seachas an chéad alt mar deir sé chuile rud agus atá an Rialtas ag rá le fada an lá.

Fine Gael's motion is similar to the Government's amendment, with the exception of the first paragraph, in which it asks us to cut substantially the €40 billion borrowing requirement. The problem is the Opposition parties never outline where borrowing should be cut. Whenever the Government makes hard decisions, they oppose them, even though Fine Gael is asking us to make cutbacks and raise taxes in the motion. No Opposition has ever done this before and, therefore, we should welcome that. No opposition in the history of the world has ever asked a government to raise additional tax and introduce other revenue raising measures. We should take this opportunity, which offers great hope to the country that we may can start together on the serious suggestions the Opposition parties have put forward. They are being given the opportunity to almost come into government and undergo a proper analysis and costing of their proposals. That is welcome because we need to give the people hope.

However, a serious criticism of the Fine Gael motion relates to its assertion that the Government's measures do not have international confidence. If the words of Mr. Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, cannot be described as "international confidence", I do not know what they can be called. Mr. Trichet said he was very happy with what the Government was doing and that the Government was going down the right path. That is international confidence and we need to relay that.

The Opposition parties made proposals and offered to support additional, substantial taxes. When a budget is implemented following serious consultation with them, it is important they support it and recognise the Government is receiving support internationally because that is critical. Every time they criticise something we do because they are not prepared to support it politically, even though they recognise it is necessary, the cost of our national debt increases. I am glad the Opposition is taking this seriously. However, the Government parties have taken this issue seriously for a long time. They have not been swayed by opinion polls, although I agree with those who stated we must bring the people along with us on this because it has to be done.

The Government has taken tough decisions, which are absolutely necessary, because we cannot continue to borrow. No mention was made of the Government successfully selling a three-year €4 billion bond last week. We will have to pay this back, and not just our children and grandchildren, and we will have to borrow more. The interest rate on the bond is high, partially because the perception here is there is no international confidence in what we are doing when the reality is the people who matter internationally are satisfied with what we are doing, including Mr. Trichet.

The Government has made a clear commitment that the general Government deficit will not be worse than 9.5% of GDP this year. It is a shocking figure but if it was lowered any further, the cutbacks in expenditure and services would be horrendous. The Government's job is to do what it can with the money available to it. It cannot continue to provide endless services and pay endless wages if the resources are not available. The Government is doing a fabulous job of managing our resources and not overstretching us for the future.

The motion states, "unless we urgently take new measures to stop Government borrowing from spiralling out of control, other measures to support our struggling small businesses, exporters and job seekers will have little effect". While we took the public finances under control over the past six months, the Opposition parties said we were not concentrating on job creation. However, Fine Gael has acknowledged in the motion that we need to get the public finances under control before the country has any economic prospects, which the Government has said all along.

I commend the Government on the work it has done and on taking hard decisions that are not popular with us and the people. However, they have to be taken because we do not have the money and we cannot borrow any more.

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