Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Yesterday we saw the rather unedifying spectacle of this House being focused entirely on the job of one person, when the work of this House should have been focused on the lives and the careers of the approximately 500,000 people who are unemployed and the approximately 700 job losses announced in Aer Lingus following 250 in Intel. Other people are being let go because of a lack of credit being made available to them by banks, and their inability to get credit and have extended facilities made available to them. That is what the House should focus on.

There is no coherence on where the Government is heading in terms of job protection and job creation in so far as public finances are concerned. What is the Government's plan for the public finances and the fiscal strategy therein? In April of this year the Minister for Finance set out his additional measures to be delivered in 2010 and 2011. A total of €2.25 billion was to be delivered in cuts this year from current expenditure and capital expenditure according to the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan. Since then, on more than one occasion the Minister has said that the strategy of the Government is to have €4 billion in cuts in spending. That seems to be a clear departure from the April supplementary Budget Statement issued by the Minister on behalf of the Government.

What is the strategy? Have the Greens - who will meet this weekend - the former leader of the Progressive Democrats and the Government signed up to a new fiscal strategy in so far as public finances are concerned? Is it to be €2.25 billion in total spending cuts with a further €2.5 billion from taxation or is it €4 billion in spending cuts for this year? Which is it? Has everybody signed up to a new strategy that has been adopted by the Government? Will the Taoiseach respond on the Government's plan in terms of public finances from here on?

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