Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

If the Taoiseach does not get down to business and talk to his British counterparts about levelling the playing pitch, the surge in cross-Border shopping will continue.

Six weeks ago, my party stated that whatever else the Government does, it should not tamper with the universality of child benefit. Every other country in Europe has an in-built mechanism in the tax system to address the cost of raising families. Ireland does not have such a mechanism. Child benefit is of major importance to many mothers. The Government has made a serious mistake in reducing it.

I am reminded of a comment made by Deputy Connaughton, whose antennae are sharper than those of most other people, that there are many mean husbands in this country and some mothers must ask their husbands for every cent they spend in managing their household budgets. Implicit in this is a recognition of the value of paying child benefit directly to mothers. The benefit is not abused. What the Government has done is wrong and will come back to haunt it. The reduction in child benefit for children who need it is a mistake.

What message does the decision to reduce the carer's allowance by €8.60 send out to full-time carers? The message is that the work of people in full-time caring positions is not valued by the State. If carers did not have love and respect for their kith and kin, the people for whom they are caring would be in State institutions at ten times the cost. They provide full-time care for family members in their homes because of their love of family. The Government has sent out a message, through the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, that it does not value this care or the work carers do, which saves the State hundreds of millions of euro every year.

The Government has made a direct attack on the public service as a result of which public servants will hold a deep sense of resentment.

The Fine Gael Party proposed a real stimulus through the establishment of a new economic recovery authority under which progress would be made on water, broadband, green energy, a smart grid, etc. More than 105,000 jobs would be created in the coming years in Cavan, Monaghan, Dublin, Louth, Cork and elsewhere for young people, engineers, tradesmen, graphic designers and manufacturers of all types of products. This is the type of stimulus we need and it is not evident in the budget.

The Government may be pandering to the private sector on the basis that income tax has not been increased but the fact remains that levies are here to stay and the economic stimulus is not what it should be.

I note the local government fund will be cut by 12.5% and road maintenance funding cut by 10%. While the road safety plans issued by the Road Safety Authority are very good, we will find that, with no money available in local authorities, there will be serious accidents and the county road structure will deteriorate at enormous cost. If the reduction in the local government fund is not recompensed no local authority will be able to balance its budget. The Government may have done this for political reasons given that the Fine Gael Party controls many local authorities or because the Minister for Transport, speaking on behalf of the Government, indicated that county and town councils will be abolished. I do not know if that is official Government policy.

I listen to people speak of wonderful advances being made in technology and what the Government is doing for schools. Am I to hear shouts of acclamation from across the hills when a laptop arrives in a local school? Schools will be given laptops even though a broadband service may not be available. As they used to say in country and western music, the day Big Tom came to town was a day to remember. In this case, we are all supposed to say the day the laptop arrived in the school was absolutely wonderful.

Training courses must be dealt with. With respect, many of the young people, particularly young men between the ages of 18 and 23 years, who are attending training courses have serious literacy and numeracy problems. Providing training courses will not sort out their problems. My advice, which is given constructively, is that the Government should arrange an aggressive series of educational courses running over 12 weeks and with classes limited to 14 for this category of young people with an identified educational problem. Young teachers should be employed to take the courses which should come under the management of FÁS. This approach would be much more beneficial than placing these young people on useless training courses when there are serious problems with their literacy and numeracy capacity.

I note €3 million has been allocated for a referendum on children's rights. While I support this measure, I suggest the Government accept the Bill introduced by Deputy Shatter on behalf of the Fine Gael Party and use the opportunity, at no extra cost, to have a simultaneous referendum on the matter of judicial pay to avoid having judges deemed an elite group and remove pressure on them to reduce pay as a consequence of not being subject to a normal pay decrease.

The Government should have increased mortgage interest relief, as Fine Gael proposed, for people who bought houses from 2004 onwards and are now in negative equity. These people have a real problem and will come under even greater pressure when interest rates increase next year as the German and French economies grow. If one job in a household is lost, couples will not be able to pay their mortgage. The problem for those who want to buy new houses is not mortgage interest relief but access to credit.

There is no sense of equity in the budget. It is a blunt instrument which was born out of desperation and a failure to agree public service reform. There is no stimulus in this for the jobs we need, there is no sense of capacity to reform or have a more effective public service. The Taoiseach will not get it now because he destroyed the goodwill of the leadership of the entire public sector. The private sector will not get the stimulus it should.

The Taoiseach had a glorious opportunity to bring about a situation inside five years whereby people would think of this country as energetic, vibrant and one that will climb to the top of the ladder again in terms of health, education, efficiency of public service, delivery of jobs and a place where people would wish to be. This should be a country of real vibrancy and energy which can climb back to the top but I do not believe the Taoiseach will be able to do this. He has wasted a glorious opportunity. When the people cast their verdict in due course, they will give a savage verdict on this Government of Fianna Fáil and the Green Party. It has been the worst Government in the history of the State as far as I am concerned.

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