Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I am bitterly disappointed at the standard of the Government's treatment of this debate. I wrote to the Minister for Finance 11 days ago looking for the revised economic forecast for GDP, an updated figure for the tax forecasts for this year, with information on a number of other available tax options. We are facing into an unprecedented set of decisions and the House needs the maximum information in order that we may subject the available options to scrutiny, if we hope to make the best choices in these extremely difficult times to protect employment and the economy and build for the future.

I do not know whom the Government believes it is fooling. I do not want to cast any aspersions on the Minster for Transport who was sent into the House to lead the debate. However, it seems extraordinary, at a time when people are talking openly about the possibility of national bankruptcy, that the Minister for Finance does not believe it is worth his while to lead the debate on the issue of how we should prepare for the extremely difficult set of decisions we have to make. Frankly, I do not understand it. I wrote to the Minister a long time ago and have sought to contribute in a constructive manner to this debate in order that we might have a meaningful discussion about the budgetary options available.

If there is one thing we have learned from recent budgets it is that wholly inappropriate decisions have been made year after year because budgetary options have not been subjected to scrutiny. We persisted with tax reliefs building the property bubble to an unprecedented level because, again, tax expenditures were not subjected to scrutiny. Ministers have hidden behind the secrecy afforded by the budgetary process to conceal from the public what they are at. This has brought the Government and the economy, as well as the House, into disrepute. At a time of crisis the Government cannot see beyond the length of its long political nose to see that this is a time for doing things differently and realising that we have to renew politics in confronting it. The Minister has not said anything about the budgetary framework, the level of tax receipts he hopes will be achieved this year, the scale of the deficit we have to bridge or the balance between taxation and spending cuts he believes is appropriate. These are matters on which the Government surely has an opinion and on which the House should be informed in order that we can have a meaningful debate.

This is a vibrant economy. The whole world looked at Ireland because we were able to produce an economy with high productivity, high export growth and sound public finances. That economy was destroyed, however, by a catastrophic failure, namely, the embrace of high spending and high cost governance supported by an unsustainable property bubble. The catastrophic failures that happened on the Government's watch are being simply glossed over. The trouble is that many of the decisions central to the problems we face are ones the Government have walked us into, for example, by the irresponsible fiscal stimulus it pursued, particularly at election time, and the unsustainable pay settlement strategies, not only benchmarking, but afterwards in wanting to award Ministers the crazy pay packets it stated were in line with comparators in the private sector. Its methods of budgeting, as we see today, were not fit for running a corner shop, let alone an economy of the scale and importance of Ireland's. Then there was the deliberate sabotage of a performance culture in the public service, with the decisions on decentralisation and the HSE. It destroyed the quality of professionalism, effectively stating to public servants that when it came to political decisions, standards of governance did not matter: "We will move people around like pawns on a board." The only reason for establishing the HSE was to sweep away bureaucratic excess; instead a guarantee was given to all bureaucrats that they could stay in place and a super-bureaucracy was foisted on the public on top of it. Is that not saying to committed public servants, in effect, "We do not care about efficiency or professional standards"?

The Government has been guilty of following a style of governance where the transforming power of the new economy in Ireland did not reach into many sectors, but rather into privileged and protected sectors which could circle the wagons and protect their own interests. I list among these, for example, monopoly utilities which have become the most expensive in the country and believe they can give their employees pay increases when employees in the rest of the economy are taking pay cuts. The banking sector always had a commitment that the taxpayer would provide a guarantee. Even now, with the taxpayer having to ride in to rescue them, the banks believe they can still dish out bonuses to their top executives. They do not believe they need to sweep away the executives who steered the economy down the cul-de-sac in which we are severely impaired and from which we are trying to get out.

Neither have big public bureaucracies been held accountable, which is no surprise. People were let down by these sectors which were under-regulated and undermanaged on the Government's watch. This has been a really serious problem as regards the approach the Government has taken. It was never willing to confront the deep fault lines in public policy that allowed what happened to the economy to take place. Reform was always out of bounds, to be postponed to another day. Problems were bought out. The Government prided itself on the way it could buy out any vested interest that was giving out or threatening. A small circle of people had unrivalled access to the Government and still does. Those who questioned the "miracle" of the property driven economy were frozen out and told they were Jeremiahs and fit to commit suicide. That is the legacy. Regulation was based on the simple faith that those in charge knew best. There was no scrutiny of the regulations passed. The trouble is that the original strength of the economy, a shared analysis of our problems, time after time turned into a dangerous consensus which was low on reform, competition and scrutiny, as well as weak on performance.

There has been gross failure, even on the watch of the Minister for Transport who is brave enough at least to admit it, but gross failure, for example, as regards climate change, has no consequences for any Minister. That is the legacy we face and what must be corrected in this budget if we are to start to turn things around.

We are facing a meltdown in this economy. Living standards in the country will be hit with an at least 20% cut. As a community, we have choices in that we can circle the wagons, protect those in strong positions, take no cuts and leave it to the unemployed and the young people coming out of our schools and colleges to take the brunt of the pain or we can all knuckle down and say it is time for radical change in the way we do our business, starting with Government and politics and extending to the banks, the public utilities and the public sector. That is what this budget must be about.

The budget must be about reinventing Ireland, our public sector, our economy, the social contract and our face to the world. Until Ministers are willing to say they made huge mistakes, that we must change the way money is spent in this country and that we must change the standards of performance which pass for good enough — that applies to Ministers as well as public servants and everyone in this economy — we are completely at nought in having debates such as this. We will come to 7 April and we will still not have changed anything that will strengthen this economy.

I am scared that the approach the Government will take to this budget will sleep walk us into an economic disaster. It would have been enlightening to hear the deficit target for the end of this year to which the Government is working. Will we have to meet a target of 9.5% come hell or high water? The truth is we cannot control that deficit target. It deficit could be wiped out by bad May returns and bad June returns. Will the Minister come back in May and June and announce more taxes to chase the economy further down?

Let us be honest with ourselves. The only target we can set is in regard to the structural deficit. That is ignoring the business cycle. We can change what is happening to the underlying trend in public spending versus public taxation and we must drive that down. That deficit, of a scale of approximately 8%, has become too large and must be eliminated over a period of four years. If the Minister said that, we would have some credibility — that there will be an underlying structural reform package, that we have a view of what the structural deficit associated with that will be, that we will squeeze out cost over that period and that we will not give international commitments to the EU or anyone else about the level of borrowing because we cannot make such a commitment in that we do not know the depth or pace of the depression into which we are entering.

We need to make credible commitments internationally. Has the Government committed internationally to this 9.5% target about which we keep hearing? Has it made a decision that we will meet it, come hell or high water, because that is what we were told by the Taoiseach ten days ago? I am not sure that is the case. I do not believe it is a wise commitment to make because it is one we cannot control. We can only control the underlying deficit.

I despair when I hear the Minister and the Taoiseach come into the House and say the secrecy of the budget is sacrosanct, that Government must make decisions and that it cannot provide any information to the Opposition. That is basically what the Taoiseach said in the House one hour ago. If that is the case, we are back to where we always were. I refer to statements like that which the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, made about the role of the Opposition. He stated, "In doing so, the Government has looked to find cross-party support for its efforts to address the difficulties in the public finances." Does the Minister seriously expect it will get cross-party support by coming into the House on 7 April listing off expenditure cuts and tax increases and that the Opposition will rally to the flag and say this is a wonderful Government?

There is a role for the Opposition in this House. It is a role of scrutiny and of stress testing proposals emanating from Government. This Government has destroyed that role in regard to budgetary strategy. We have learned to our expense what that has meant. After its last budget, the Government had to do a U-turn on many critical aspects. It destroyed its own credibility and our international credibility by not having a budget on which it could stand over. If it took up the Opposition's offer to have a serious debate about the options, perhaps we could stress test some of decisions in advance.

It is essential as we approach this crisis that we use it to reinvent this country. We must embed reform and not engage simply in slash and burn. We must choose taxes which promote efficiency in the way we use resources and not simply chase the economy down. We must find catalysts for economic opportunity so that even in this difficult time, we can find ways to seize and work the opportunities which remain to us.

There must be a dramatic cut in the cost of doing things. That must start with the Government. We must halve the number of Ministers of State, halve the number of committees and cut back on top level pay in the public service, including our own, an issue which still has to be addressed. We must end increments in the public service to get us through this difficult time. We must be genuinely willing to cut the cost of what we do and what everyone else does, otherwise the brunt of this crisis will be borne by people who have joined the live register queues. That is the sort of leadership we should see from Government, that is, we need to see how it will reform itself and then move to reform public spending.

The profound change in public spending which we now need means that budgets must no longer be about the demands of agencies but about the needs of ordinary people. Agencies and units of government should bid for money on the basis of what they can deliver. Is it not extraordinary and ludicrous that hospitals which face tight budgets close wards and beds and turn away their patients? Can one think of anything more ludicrous than a budgetary system which traps committed talented public servants in our hospitals into turning away patients as a way to become more effective? Surely we should have a system where money follows the patient and where hospitals which are efficient can deliver more patients for money and where the response to difficulties is to cut overheads and treat more patients more efficiently and not turn them away.

This budget must be the start of a major set of reforms starting with Government and then spreading out into the public service and beyond, into the kind of smart investments we make for new opportunities. I saw no such approach in the Minister's opening remarks, which depressed me. It depresses me that we are going through this sham of a debate at a time when the country is looking for leadership and for Parliament to play a meaningful role in offering that leadership. The Government is too short-sighted to see the opportunity.

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