Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The Taoiseach wants the Opposition parties to reveal their hands long before he reveals his own. It is like asking Giovanni Trapattoni to show his tactical notes to his French counterpart a full 24 hours before the game starts in Paris. All I can say to the Taoiseach is to dream on.

The pre-budget outlook is a dishonest and deceitful document. What credence can citizens give to a document that purports to set out income and expenditure for the coming year but that does not provide a clue as to the ongoing cost of the banks to the Exchequer for 2010? There was no provision in the April budget for Anglo Irish Bank but the Minister borrowed €3.8 billion to hand it over, a decision that grossly inflated the Exchequer deficit for the year.

Without a clear statement on the provision for banks in 2010, how can we honestly debate how many billions we can afford for health, welfare and pay? Anglo Irish Bank is a clear and present danger to our national solvency and if more billions are to be thrown into the Anglo incinerator, we are entitled to be aware of that on budget day. We heard at the weekend that it is looking for €5 billion or €6 billion more. The Minister's failure to make any indication of his attitude as regards further billions for the Anglo Irish Bank bonfire is an act of gross deception. He said all along that the bank bailout would cost us nothing but my God, was he wrong.

Now the Minister wants to hide the true cost we had to pay in 2009 and to maintain that pretence by leaving it out of the budget arithmetic and the national accounts for 2010. The deficit for 2009 will be €26 billion, but nearly €3.8 billion of this is down to Anglo Irish Bank.

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