Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

The responsibility for the economy lies not with bankers, the regulator or the Department of Finance but with the Government. This Government blew the boom and only history will tell us why and how. We can talk and speculate about the Galway tent but with the passing of time we will almost certainly establish all the facts.

One of the most serious errors the Government made was extending the bank guarantee, which Fine Gael supported at the time, to Anglo Irish Bank. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Lenihan stated it was in the interests of the economy and to hold up our international reputation to inspire confidence in international investors. I firmly believe if we had let Anglo Irish Bank go international investors would have said the Government was responsible and prepared to take difficult decisions. It did not justify keeping this guarantee but it was the soft option and sent out an image to the international markets that politicians, bankers and developers were all one and the same.

I realise this is a small country and is different from France, England or America and has a small cohort of people who interact with one another but it is something we must get away from, irrespective of who is in Government. No-one can trust this Government any longer and people will not have trust in the political establishment again until they have the opportunity, through the forum of a general election, to pass judgment on what has happened.

This budget reminds me of the Don McLean song "American Pie". In this case it is bye-bye to the Irish pie. There was feasting at the table of Fianna Fáil and its cohorts in Government, the Progressive Democrats and Independents. They feasted on the fruits of a nation and a generation that will now pick up the tab in the darker years ahead. We have a health levy, an income levy and a pension levy, and as the song states, "I drove my chevy to the levee but the levee was dry". Why did the Government not have the courage to come forward and say it will increase taxes to 51% or 52%?

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