Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

They can tell the Minister, Deputy Lenihan, it was one of the worst designed bribes ever given to young families. It did absolutely nothing except drive up crèche fees. He is now adopting a Labour Party proposal, which is that we should have an early child care system. Fianna Fáil had 12 good years when threw it all away and spent it on electoral bribes such as those we saw when the Fianna Fáilers were working the queue.

We are paying again for the banks. This Government started life this time last year with a fair wind. The Taoiseach enjoyed his own county's adoration, amazing media support and tremendous goodwill from the whole country. He had political capital in abundance and threw it all away. Today the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance or Fianna Fáil do not have much capital left to ask the Irish people to endure sacrifice and be as resilient as they always have been in the face of danger.

Not so long ago there was a shocking foot and mouth scare in Ireland but everybody responded to it. The whole country united in the common name of Irish men and women to see off a danger that threatened our country's prosperity. There was no quibble about cost or inconvenience; the job had to be done.

However, the Government does not have the vital political capital to call the country to unity today and that is why there will be little or no public consent to today's measures. Of the €3.2 billion this supplementary budget will take out of the economy, some €1 billion will be in tax, of which €754 million is in income tax, mainly from the PAYE sector. Another €799 million is in levies, PRSI and the health levy, again, mainly from the PAYE sector. Of that €3.2 billion package, €1.5 billion, or approximately half of it, will be paid in taxes directly from the PAYE sector. As the Taoiseach well knows, the PAYE sector did not cause the bank crisis or greed that this budget is paying for. They did not cause it but he is making sure they will pay for it.

It reminds me of the First World War generals who called for wave after wave of sacrifice from ordinary families and soldiers, which gave rise to a very famous phrase, "Lions led by donkeys". This is the perfect description of the plight of the people today. The hopes of one more generation of young Irish people were dashed today in order to pay for the dismal failures of Government policy for over a decade.

For a time the Government could blame the international background. Now that excuse looks even more threadbare. Even the Central Bank recognises the roots of our current crisis lie overwhelmingly in domestic policy. Every aspect of policy was geared towards promoting the property bubble. It is stated in the budget that 12.5% would have been the deficit. The Central Bank report last week stated 10% of the deficit was structural and is, therefore, attributable to Fianna Fáil and the property market which collapsed. The other side of the House fanned the flames of a reckless lending spree for 12 years and now it has the nerve to offer its services as firefighters to the people.

In terms of the headline figures on GDP, if the economy continues to contract from today's decisions, it will be very difficult to get the percentage deficit right. The real effect of today's budget, tragically, could be to drive the economy deeper into recession. It could erode confidence more and could undermine the efforts of business to put some life into the economy. Every action of the Government has made a bad situation worse. The increase in VAT last October was folly in the extreme, an act of wild madness and the wrong decision at the wrong time, and I notice the Government has no strategy to reverse it. Many of today's decisions come from the same stable and are just as suspect.

Last week, I heard groups of Dublin stockbrokers had come together to give their tuppence worth of advice to the Minister. Their principal recommendation was to reduce social welfare. These are people who are always first in the queue to get public contracts and consultancies. Most of their consultancies cost €1,000 to €2,500 per day. Did they get their way? The Minister took away the Christmas bonus, which costs €156 million, from people on social welfare.

I am sure the Minister, Deputy Lenihan, remembers an important lesson from his old school, which is to beware of Greeks bearing gifts. He should have been wary of stockbrokers bearing recommendations that would reduce income for people who are quite poor and increase poverty in this country.

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