Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

There has been no honesty from the Opposition. It has provided no details of proposals, nor has not even asked questions about it. When one listens to the 9 o'clock news all we hear are comments from the Opposition that we have been bailing out the banks and that we should not make cuts or increase taxes. That three-way equation does not bring a solution. It is not right. What is right is that we try to deal with the issue because of the lessons we have learned from the past, not just the lessons of the 1980s, but also those of the 1950s. We have learned that we should not allow such budget situations fester for ten years, as we did in the 1950s until T.K. Whitaker and others, like Seán Lemass, opened up our economy and set it on a different path, or as we did in the 1980s, from early 1982 until 1988, until eventually, Alan Dukes and members of the Government at the time started to take some of the necessary hard decisions.

I have not heard constructive proposals from the Opposition. I have heard the phrase "public service reform". Public service reform must be part of everything we do, but it is not an easy, magic bullet for raising €4 billion. Public service reform involves real cuts and difficult decisions, but the Opposition has never outlined how these decisions will be taken.

The Government is doing a hard thing, but it is the right thing. It is not easy and mistakes have been made. We could look back on some cuts that have been made and ask whether we could have done things differently. There is an argument for that. I accept the position stated by Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan. I welcome her contribution, which is a credit to her and former Deputy, Tony Gregory, who is missed.

I would like to deal with the issue of where the Government is getting things right, namely, the recovery aspect of its responsibility. The smart economy document set out by the Government before Christmas, turning the country to a higher technological economy and a green clean economy is the right approach. It is based on solid foundations that are now bearing fruit from our investment in Science Foundation Ireland and other research work. The green economy development within that recovery plan will be the crucial way for us to create new jobs. It builds on our huge renewable energy resources. The Opposition talks about doubling the amount of renewable energy in use, but it is the biggest obstacle to us developing our renewable systems through the opposition it leads against some of the power transmission systems we need to build.

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