Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

This budget will puncture the confidence of thousands of Irish families and result in the demise of thousands of small retail businesses because the Government took the easy option. There is no reform of the HSE, no reform of FÁS, no jobs plan and no strategy to get people back to work. All we have is an indication that close to 500,000 people will be out of work next year. The Government has taken the soft option and looked for the easy targets. We now know the Government is to take almost €100 per week from middle income families, who do not sit around the table at social partnership meetings and face the Taoiseach down. These are the voiceless people who are now being put to the wall because of the way the Government has gone about dealing with this budget.

We, in this party, stepped up to the mark to support the bank guarantee scheme. At that time, I had a call from the Minister for Finance at ten past seven in the morning asking me about my attitude towards the bank guarantee, and I said we needed a banking system because it was the lifeblood of commerce in this country. The Taoiseach told us there was no run on Anglo Irish Bank. He told us there was no impropriety in the banking system. He told us he would deal with the issue of bank bonuses and high pay. These statements were not true. After all the consideration the Cabinet has given to this budget, we now know it is going to force middle income families to pay for its mistakes. What will the banks be made to pay for their mistakes? Can the Taoiseach tell us how much he intends to take from the taxpayer to pay banks for dodgy developer debts, which we are now told amount to €90 billion?

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