Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

We must be enterprising. This Government has put the mechanisms in place to make that happen.

I agree with my colleagues in the Labour Party that we have to be equal and with Ruairí Quinn when he says a more equal society is more competitive, successful and cohesive one. A rational analysis of the past two years would show how this Government has amended the tax system to tax those at the high end of the scale and to cut out the reliefs that were part of the property bubble problem. It has happened. We will push it to the nth degree that does not damage our other goal of creating an enterprising society.

On a more profound note, one of the egalitarian questions raised in this budget was whether to cut services. That was a prospect to which I say no. It is better for us to manage our affairs here, taking some of the hard decisions on pay and social welfare to protect the services that are integral to an equal society. To the parent whose son or daughter is going to a special needs school this morning it was important to be able to say that those schools stay open and that in fact we have provided an additional 28 psychologists because that is important for our equal society. I am not sure that the IMF would make a similar call. We are willing to make those hard calls to ensure that those schools stay open and that where teachers are needed they are provided.

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