Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

That is fair enough but we must examine what the Government is doing on the expenditure side because the cutbacks are scary.

The centrepiece of this budget should have been job retention and job creation. Deputy Gilmore and I both made the point that the revenue stream will not improve unless we maintain existing jobs and create new jobs to cater for the 370,000 people on the live register. As ever more people join the dole queues, the drain on revenue through unemployment benefits and welfare payments becomes larger. This is the element of the budget that disappoints me most. I do not say this to make a party political point but because I genuinely believe the jobs issue needs to be tackled most. While we can argue about the other issues, the crisis will not begin to bottom out until such time as the issues of job retention and job creation are addressed.

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