Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

It is not that these measures will not act as a stimulus, it is that budgets are about choices and the Minister chose to impose the burden of pain on families with children and those on social welfare aged under 66 years. As I stated, the burden sharing introduced in the taxation measures for the higher paid amounts to less than 1.5% of the total €4 billion adjustment.

It is a heartbreaking time for parents of young graduates and apprentices in many trades. The saddest aspect of the Minister's pre-budget outlook was his acceptance that unemployment would increase by a further 75,000 next year. Employment in agriculture has declined by 15%, whole classes of nurses, all of whom were trained at considerable cost to the State, have departed to work in hospitals in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, and newly qualified architects, solicitors, civil engineers, trainee teachers, construction apprentices are finding it impossible to find jobs at home. If this is the fate of those with qualifications, how much worse is it for the early school leaver and young unemployed person? This is a nightmare scenario for the individuals affected and their families and no less a nightmare for the whole country.

History teaches us the lesson that youth unemployment and unemployment among people aged under 25 years causes permanent scars, its effects last a lifetime and economic recovery does not guarantee that the scars will be healed. Employment must, therefore, be the main focus of policy. The Labour Party accepted the €4 billion adjustment so as to protect our country's international credit rating and make the cost of borrowing as cheap as possible. We added an additional €1.8 billion in our document to allow scope for a jobs initiative. The Minister is so obsessed with rescuing banks at any cost that he cannot face the awesome jobs and employment challenge that should engage his attention night and day.

John B. Keane wrote a great play titled, "Many Young Men of Twenty Said Goodbye". Today, many young men and women will say goodbye after Christmas because they must take the decision to leave, as people all over rural Ireland and every town and city know. Is this the legacy the Minister wants from his time in office?

The Minister claims to have a smart economy strategy. Where is it now, a full year after its launch? He devoted enormous energy and resources to protecting the property economy through NAMA but has not devoted a fraction of that energy to the knowledge economy. Where are the internships that can offer a bridge for young graduates and apprentices? If a newly qualified person becomes unemployed for a long period, it is difficult to reintegrate him or her in the labour force when the recession ends two or three years later. If they are unable to secure job experience on leaving college, younger graduates will take up the opportunities to acquire experience when the recession is over. The way the Minister is treating young, unemployed people is a real problem and the measures in the budget today hardly touch the surface of the issue.

I refer to child benefit. The Minister flagged this issue very well and has decided to make this cut in respect of women and children the centrepiece and the heart of his strategy, aside from the reduction in public service pay. I recall the day early in May 2007 when the professor, Deputy Bertie Ahern, called an election. The Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, had an early morning job to do. It was a Tuesday morning in May 2007, the monthly child benefit payment day, but there would be no ordinary payment that day; it would be a bumper payment day. The previous December, the other Brian, the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, had made a special budget day announcement that child benefit was to increase in 2007 by €10 per month per child. This would not happen immediately and mothers would have to wait for several months. They would have to wait until May to get the increase which, by coincidence, would be the election month. Mums in the post office queue in Blanchardstown were looking forward to a bumper payment, and to make the day extra special, there was the then Minister of State with responsibility for children, Deputy Brian Lenihan, walking along the queue shaking hands and kissing babies - I am unsure about that part of it as I did not see him doing that - and reminding everyone that Fianna Fáil was the party that looked after child benefit.

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