Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Perhaps it is people in different offices within the Minister's remit who are at war with each other. The Department of Finance, the regulator, the Central Bank and the NTMA all have a different scéal to tell about what is happening.

I received a reply to a parliamentary question last week that informed me that PricewaterhouseCoopers was paid €3.8 million for the initial work it did in examining the banks' portfolios, but it did not come up with the figure of €80 billion to €90 billion. I understand that figure probably came from the Bacon report. I noted also from the response to my question that Merrill Lynch had been paid a retainer of €2 million and, perhaps, up to €6 million for its advice. What advice did the Minister receive from Merrill Lynch? It was that company which advised us to ape the British response, either by introducing an insurance scheme, a proposal it would have been madness to adopt, or some kind of guarantee. Who in the Department decided the initial ballpoint figure to be paid to Merrill Lynch would be €2 million? I understand also that several millions of euro was paid or committed to various legal firms for advice and that various external people were also hired by the Minister. The Minister paid an initial €3.8 million to PricewaterhouseCoopers for its work and it has carried out further stress-testing. Will he publish the report in order that we can see whether the so-called stress-testing amounts to a hill of beans? Stress-testing is risk analysis, a mathematical formula. I have asked several mathematicians to examine the formula and they have said it is mathematical mumbo jumbo. Last week, when I put this point to Professor Honohan, he agreed that it was mathematical mumbo jumbo to try to find a figure. Why does the Minister not level with the people on what he is getting them into? We know the Minister is in a difficult position in trying to find the best solution, but there should be transparency. As the Swedes said, transparency is the key. If we had transparency, we would be in a position to see whether what the Government proposes is reasonable. The reason people are so angry is they see themselves with a bill for €80 billion to €90 billion or for 50% or 60% of this. We do not know how much. It has been suggested the bill will be approximately €50 billion. The people know this is a weight that must be borne by them, their children and, possibly, their grandchildren when they become taxpayers.

Another issue is that jobs are hardly mentioned in the budget. With the freezing of credit by the banks and the banks being pretty much like the Japanese zombie banks - just not lending - we have no Government strategy on jobs. The former Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy John McGuinness, spoke on the record when he left the Department. He said that, as a business person, he was shocked by the Department. I served with him on the Committee of Public Accounts and I am aware he does not particularly admire the public service. However, on some of what he had to say it sounded like a voice of experience.

The challenge for the public service is to be productive. Public servants should be well paid, but they must produce the goods. This means they must produce enlightened policies that will help the country to retain jobs and acquire more. The Labour Party has brought forward proposals in respect of a graduate internship system, under which graduates and apprentices would be taken on and given work experience instead of being put on the dole, at an estimated cost of €200 per week. We have heard only very modest proposals from the Government. It does not seem to realise that 380,000 people on the dole is a tremendous shock to the fabric of society. Parents worry about the future of their children who are highly qualified but cannot find a job, and their children's children. The Government has no response to the crises in three areas, banking, public finances and most of all, unemployment which affects every family, town, village and street. The jobs crisis is the most tragic of all the problems that have afflicted this late stage of the Celtic tiger, the crony capitalist economy the Minister's party created.

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