James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

Ireland Inc. is in serious trouble. I wish to respond to some of what Deputy McGrath has just said. If we are to be able to plan for the future, it is important to look at the past and, in particular, to examine the history of this crisis. The National Pensions Reserve Fund was established to meet the pension requirements of the public service. Many people are pleased that it will now be used for other purposes. It is far better to use the fund to invest in infrastructure than to buy stocks and shares on the international market. The boom was wasted in many respects. Examples of waste include the spending of considerable moneys on electronic voting machines and on the PPARS system. Money continues to be wasted in the HSE and in semi-State organisations like FÁS. I will not deliberate on such matters for too long.

I agree with Deputy McGrath that we need a proper plan if we are to avert this ever-worsening situation. It is worth reminding the House that it looks like this country's tax take will decrease from €55 billion last year to €35 billion, or less, this year. That is an extraordinary turn of events. It cannot be solely attributed to the effects of the international recession on international markets. The reality is that the Government's approach was unsustainable. It failed to listen to outside economists who warned that the bubble was about to burst. I refer to people like George Lee, David McWilliams and Jim Power, who contradicted what the Taoiseach was saying. Deputy Bruton had been pointing out for a number of years that Ireland's competitiveness was in decline. Ireland was the fourth most competitive economy in the western world, but it has since dropped almost to the bottom of the pile. That is why we are in our current position. We need to reflect on our ability to get ourselves out of it.

The Taoiseach presided over the beginning of the economic downturn during his four years as Minister for Finance. He told us last year that the fundamentals of the economy were sound. Does he still believe that? The Tánaiste is out of her depth. The Minister for Finance, who by his own admission is unhappy to be in that position, accepted some time ago that the building industry had come to a "shuddering halt". He now admits that it was a mistake to increase the rate of VAT, thereby costing the taxpayer €700 million and businesses €3.5 billion, which is a substantial amount of money. Rather than admitting his mistakes, he should get on with correcting them. He should start by bringing the VAT rate in this jurisdiction into line with that in the North. We need to alleviate some of the pain being caused by the weakness of sterling, which is a problem for us. Anything that makes a problem worse cannot be sustainable.

Over recent years, the Department of Finance's predictions have not been right, either coming up or going down. I understand there were 13 economists in the Department when Dr. Garret FitzGerald was Taoiseach, but there is now just one. Perhaps there has been a recent addition to the Department of Finance's advisory staff. The Department does not have the resources it needs to deal with the most serious economic crisis this country has ever experienced. Many people believe they are getting better advice from RTE programmes presented by Pat Kenny and Joe Duffy than from the Department of Finance and the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan.

We need a realistic and credible plan. I agree with Deputy Michael McGrath that we need a stimulus, but that has been sadly lacking over recent times. Reform is needed if we are to make the savings we need. We need to stop the waste in the HSE, which has a budget of approximately €16 billion. Contrary to the comments of Professor Drumm and the Minister, Deputy Harney, at yesterday's meeting of the Joint Committee on Health and Children, the reality is that 12 people with brain tumours have been waiting for more than six weeks to receive life-saving surgery in outlying hospitals throughout this country. That is just one example of services not being made available to patients. In 2009, that is a bad reflection on Ireland.

Deputies have alluded to the difficulties of self-employed people. Earlier this week, a man came to my clinic to tell me he had seriously injured his shoulder in a fall. It is possible that he will not be able to work again. He will certainly be unable to work in maintenance, as he was doing before. He cannot get social welfare assistance even though he has paid all his taxes and his stamps. I will raise that matter with the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Hanafin. It demonstrates that people are not getting the help they need. More and more of them are becoming unemployed. Although the authorities knew the unemployment office in Balbriggan was to close, they made no provision for its replacement. It is outrageous that people in Balbriggan and Swords have to queue in the rain or travel to Gardiner Street in Dublin city centre.

I would like to speak about the core of this problem. We all agree that we need savings, we need an economic stimulus and we need to broaden our tax base, but we need to decide how those things should be done. Yesterday, the Minister for Health and Children claimed that I oppose all of her reforms, which is not the case. I supported her cervical vaccination scheme, which she later turned her back on. I supported her cervical screening scheme. I would support many of her other schemes if the detail could be amended. The manner in which the HSE was established was wrong, for example. Nobody took the time to do it correctly. This morning, the Taoiseach accused the Opposition of opposing everything. The job of the Opposition is to oppose and expose weaknesses in Government policy so they can be corrected. However, this Government does not take advice, get embarrassed or believe in resignation.

I would like to speak about some of the positive things we could be doing. Major infrastructural projects like metro north should go ahead. As an elected representative of Dublin North in this House, I am fully committed to that project, which would involve 7,000 jobs in its construction phase. According to the Indecon report, a further 64,000 jobs will be created along its route when it has been finished. It is extraordinary, particularly following the Celtic tiger era, that Dublin is one of the few capital cities that does not have an underground metro network. That is astonishing. The metro north project would lead to significant development. At least half of its cost could be financed through the public private partnership system. If the rest of the cost were paid over a 25-year period, it would not have a major impact on our national economic balance sheet.

It is clear that there needs to be a greater focus on green energy and green industry. We were told two years ago that bio-fuels were bad because they were reducing the global food supply, but we now find that grain prices are collapsing and farmers are looking at losses. Where is our bio-fuel industry? Why has it not been properly developed? Why has there been no real and meaningful investment in this area? What about renewable energy? Airtricity has had great success. Ireland has significant wind power possibilities, not only in coastal areas but also in the middle of the country. The Government is not investing in tidal power technology as it should. This is where we should be going. We need our own green economy so we can be independent of the vagaries of the external oil market. In such circumstances, we could use the interconnectors that have been developed with the UK to become a net exporter of energy.

We need to consider the establishment of a bank to help small businesses that are in trouble. We had the Industrial Credit Corporation, ICC, before the Government sold it. We need a new ICC to help companies like SR Technics, for example, which employs almost 1,200 people. If SR Technics is allowed to close, it will be impossible to reassemble its substantial engineering expertise, not to mention its hardware, machinery and equipment. I remind the House that the company's business books are half-full of orders. Has any attempt been made to save it? When I spoke earlier to Deputy McEntee, who represents Meath East, he told me he had attended a meeting at which it became apparent that the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, knew last October that the SR Technics hangars were being handed back.

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