Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I agree the Minister has adopted the residency rule and set a maximum tax but the figures tell it all. Nothing will be achieved from that measure this year and even next year it will only be €55 million. We were targeting a contribution of 600 million contribution from the better-off in our community. That balance was needed and it has been missed. However, there is a greater unfairness in this budget. Where is the fairness in the way the banking crisis has been handled? How could it be fair that those who created this problem still circle the wagons and appoint two insiders to run those banks that brought us to our knees? How can it be fair to ask the taxpayer to shoulder an extra €7 billion in paying for these impaired assets simply to protect the professional investors in these banks? How can it be fair that good businesses are now perishing because what the banks are doing is using the money the Minister gave them to protect their interests, not to rebuild a strong economy that is conscious of the needs of small business? They say that is what they are doing and that is what one would expect them to do unless the Minister intervenes to make it different.

Who is being brought to book for all this? That is what people ask me every day and I am sure they also ask the Minister the same question. Who is being brought to book for the appalling things that were done in our banks? No one has yet been brought to book. Where is the change so that we can be sure that what happened in the past will not occur again? We still do not see that change happening.

There is a void at the heart of this Government, a void in the nerve centre of this system of governance that should be driving Ireland to have a revitalised public sector at the heart of economic growth. This is a unique time of opportunity for the public sector. It controls assets that are vital to our recovery and it controls budgets that have to be managed effectively. It needs leadership in this budget and it has not happened. Fundamental changes have to start with politics and we have not seen that here. We have not seen it in the way Ministers are dealing with their own pay nor have we seen it in a willingness to confront the fact that the Oireachtas has become too big. Fine Gael has proposed getting rid of the Seanad and reducing the size of the Dáil. We should start by reforming these Houses as part of a bigger, ambitious plan to reform the country.

This is the 50th anniversary of the Lemass and Whitaker economic plan for development. Things were very similar because then as now, Ireland had years of failed policies and then as now, there were powerful interests that did not want to see change. However, what happened then did not happen now; then we had Ministers who were willing to set ambition out to be determined to confront change, to take the actions that were necessary. That is the sort of leadership we need again. The Government has failed to seize the moment. I suspect that because it is the architect of much of what has gone wrong, it has spent too much time in denial, too much time in explaining and pretending it was not its fault, to actually have the courage to make the changes we need. This budget has not started to shape the authentic economy to rebuild this country. It has not started to shape a modern public service that could rebuild the lean, fit and quality public service that is needed for the future. It has not started to mould a social contract which people could believe in, a social contract built around reform in our health system so that the two-tier service could be ended, a social contract around reforming the pensions system so we would not have people abandoned - as happened the workers in Waterford Crystal - with nothing. We need to see that thinking coming from the heart of Government. We need that sort of leadership. History has taught us the folly of many armchair generals who were too preoccupied with themselves to keep up with changing technology and who were oblivious to warnings, who produced moth eaten strategies as if they were a modern way of fighting wars.

What did they do? They sent young people over the top into the teeth of gunfire which mowed them down. In many ways, we are in an economic war. Our defences are weak, our equipment is not modern and our generals have failed us. We need real leadership from Government. At its core, what is wrong with this budget is that leadership has been lacking. It is further proof that those who got us into this mess do not have the ability to fix what they have broken. They do not have the vision, authority, courage or policies.

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