George Lee (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I thank everybody for the warm welcome I received yesterday from all sides of the House. It is a privilege to be here, of which I am conscious. I am here on the basis of a strong mandate from the people of south Dublin to speak on their behalf and on behalf of other people whom they represent, a role which I take very seriously. The last couple of weeks have been a complete change of life for me. Given the outcome of the by-election, there is no going back now.

In speaking here today, I am struck by the coincidence between my motivations for getting involved in the political process and the motion before the House today, which are one and the same. The reason I am here, that I have taken politics on board and decided to go down this route is that I have no confidence in the Government's ability to deal with or get us out of the situation in which we find ourselves. I say that carefully as I am conscious there are very good Members on the other side of the House, many of whom I have had dealings with over many years. I have a great deal of regard and respect for the Taoiseach, Deputy Brian Cowen, who, when Minister for Finance, I spent a great deal of time following and whose decisions I am aware were made following great care and thought. One decision that sticks out in my mind is that which he took in regard to the issue of child care costs resulting in his introducing the early child care supplement. It was an issue over which he mulled for quite a few days and nights before coming up with what be believed was a reasonable proposal to help deal with child care costs. I accept that the intentions of Members on the other side of the House are as good as those of any Member on this side.

In saying that I do not have confidence in the ability of those opposite, I do not wish that to be taken as a personal attack on any individual. It is, however, an attack on Government given the current situation in the country. It is in an appalling mess, economically and socially. We have had the best economy in the world and the most money available to any Government in the history of the Irish economy or in the wildest dreams of any Minister or politician to disburse in recent years. We have had a great opportunity and the Government has blown it, and there is no doubt about that.

Unemployment today stands at 402,000 people, a huge figure on its own which, when one considers how it has grown, becomes even bigger. In mid-2007 our unemployment total was 150,000 people. Since then it has increased to 400,000 people. It is currently rising at a rate of 1,000 per day on the Live Register. As I came in here yesterday bemused with regard to the antics in the Dáil - obviously I am on a learning curve and appreciate that - three Ministers on the opposite side of the House were asleep. At the time, the Taoiseach was speaking about leadership and getting quite impassioned about it. If that were an hour long, a further 152 people would have been on the dole. It is not good enough that the Members of this House can take that kind of attitude to the difficulties people are suffering. We face a phenomenal challenge.

We have heard a lot about rescuing banks and the public finances but we have not heard enough about the plight of people. The Taoiseach has stated that we must learn the lessons of the 1980s and that the prerequisite for the return of economic growth is to put the public finances in order. He also claimed that even after we increase the national debt in the next couple of years, we will still have the third lowest national debt rate in the European Union. I am not sure I agree we will be the third lowest but we will have to see how that pans out. The reality, however, is the lessons of the 1980s to which he pointed are not the ones we need to learn. In the 1980s, private sector debt was low but public debt was very high. Public debt stood at 130% of GDP whereas household debt was 48% of household disposable income. We started this process with a net debt level in the public sector of 25% of GDP and it appears this will increase to 100%. The Government tells us not to worry about that because other people are worse off. The problem, however, is that we will fix that debt on the back of ordinary individuals in the private sector, many of whom I have met in the past few months. These people are already heavily indebted in a manner which was never experienced in the 1980s. To dismiss the idea that we have bungled the public finances, to say it is not a big issue because we will continue to have a relatively low debt rate or to make comparisons with the 1980s is to miss the point.

Our world is different from the 1980s. We did not have the euro then. We had unemployment but there were opportunities in the rest of the world for our emigrants. Our property market had its ups and downs but for 30 years the average cost of a house in Ireland varied between four and six times average earnings. Lately, house prices have increased to somewhere in the order of 14 times average earnings. To take the 1980s as a blueprint for dealing with the consequences of the present economic crash is to miss the point. We cannot take the lessons of the 1980s as a policy prescription for today.

One issue in the 1980s which can, however, inform us about what we need to do today is unemployment. It is true that public debt was a huge issue, but it is equally true that we had to deal with the human consequences of the economic collapse of the 1980s for a long time afterwards. We had endemic unemployment which extended to second and third generations. My biggest fear for those who are going on the dole today is the experience of the 1980s for the people who suffered enormously when they were left on the dole. They found it impossible to get jobs when they became available. When economic growth returned, we went through a number of years of jobless growth. People were locked out of their society, community and families and there were all sorts of psychological and human effects. Unemployment destroys the soul, yet we are sitting here while unemployment doubles over 12 months.

I understand the need to fix the banks. We are also discussing our public finances. These will be fixed only on the backs of ordinary people who are already in debt. That is not fair. There has not been a close enough focus on the people who will be locked out of the labour market and the economy. They have nowhere to go and no hope at present in the Government's response. I understand the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, stated in a debate last week that it was wrong to suggest that each person on the dole cost the Exchequer €204 per week because the actual cost was €336. If that is true, why are we wasting so much money on locking people out of the labour market and out of our society?

We need to do so much more for them. They are the same as us. They are as middle class, as working class and as upper class as anybody in this Chamber. They are our friends, our brothers and sisters, our cousins and our parents. They sit and watch Ministers fall asleep while we debate the issue of leadership. The Government has failed enormously in that regard.

Yesterday the Taoiseach stated that the Government has a mandate to govern. I do not agree because I just received a mandate from the people of Dublin South that is equal to anybody's on the other side of the House. I was told to enter the Dáil and to speak. Every Member in this House has a mandate but nobody was given a mandate to govern from the people. The mandate for governing is an arrangement with the Members of this House according to a programme for Government based on a premise for the economy which turned out to be false. The Government has an agreement but not a mandate to govern. This agreement is based on false premises. The Government said the economy would boom and that income tax could be cut by 1% at the top rate and 2% at the bottom rate.

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