Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I am glad to have an opportunity to contribute to these pre-budget statements. I would like to deal with a few issues.

Most Government speakers have asked the Opposition to make suggestions. I will give them some suggestions, while also commenting on the Government's performance. The manner in which the Government communicates with the people and with this House in the build-up to the budget will determine whether it is successful. If Government Deputies are to ask the Opposition parties to co-operate with them, they should also co-operate with us, for example, by giving us information. We should sit around a table and thrash out some compromises. If the Government wants to make a serious effort to facilitate a unified all-party approach to the compilation of this emergency budget, which is not a normal budget, it should get on with it. The kind of farce we have at present does not represent such an effort. People are calling for a unity Government in the media, but the reality is that Fine Gael's finance spokesman is not being given the figures he needs from the Department of Finance. It is a nonsensical set of circumstances.

The Taoiseach needs to lead by talking directly to the people. He should be honest about the state of the country and set out where it is heading if a dramatic change of direction is not made. If the Government introduces tough and unpopular measures, such as raising taxes and cutting costs, it will get support from people like me. It needs, however, to prepare the public for the reality of an emergency budget. This is not the normal budgetary process to which the Taoiseach referred earlier. That is not what this is about. This emergency budget is being introduced in response to the fact that Ireland will continue on the road to bankruptcy if it does not change direction. I am aware that Ministers think that is dangerous talk, but it is a fact. We cannot continue to increase our deficit by €1 billion a month, which is what is happening at present.

I accept that an emergency budget is needed. People need to be spoken to directly and bluntly, in language they can understand rather than economic-speak. The Taoiseach has said he will not update this House on his preparations for the emergency budget on a weekly basis because to do so would not adhere to the normal budgetary process. I suggest that he needs to address this House and the public on live, prime time television. He needs to explain what is happening and why it is an emergency. What can people expect? Why will there be hardship? He needs to make it clear that a plan that involves hardship needs to be put in place now so that the duration of this country's recession can be reduced and we can start building again in the relatively near future. He should not allow uncertainty to continue as part of some kind of effort to try to be politically clever. That is what seems to be happening, however.

If the Government expects people to accept the pain associated with a difficult emergency budget, it needs to lead by example by cutting its administrative costs. Somehow, it needs to find between €4 billion and €6 billion over the last eight and a half months of this year. It needs to show that it can lead by example in taking the pain. We have put our proposals on the table, but where are the Government's proposals? They do not exist. We do not need 20 Ministers of State in this institution. Senior Ministers do not need 14 personal secretaries, all of whom are sometimes placed in their home constituencies. The Oireachtas does not need 23 or 24 committees. If we decide to reduce the cost of the business of this House, we will show that we are willing to lead by example. If I am not mistaken, we got through the last recession, in the 1980s, with just seven Ministers of State. The truth is that the large number of Ministers of State is just a symptom of the problem.

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