Michael Kennedy (Dublin North, Fianna Fail)

I appeal to the unions to meet the Government and to put forward their proposals. They have acknowledged that reforms are necessary, antiquated work practices must be changed and redeployment must be allowed to take place because these are the very issues that have caused us to be unproductive and uncompetitive. As I noted earlier, a small minority of people across the board are the difficulty. They are not pulling their weight and we are suffering in respect of both service levels and the pay bill. I ask the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, to use his influence to induce the Government to get these talks moving again and hopefully to achieve an agreement on how the cuts can be made.

I wish to refer to the reputational issue that some people appear to dismiss. All economic reports emanating from Ireland, Europe, New York or elsewhere come out with a single constant theme, namely, that countries suffer if they do not get their finances in order. It is indicative that last Thursday and Friday, both Moody's and Standard & Poor's came out with a reduced credit risk rating for Ireland after this tough budget had been introduced. It proves the point that had the Government not been prepared to take corrective action, we would be in a serious position. I wish to mention a report on Greece I read in last Friday's edition of the The Irish Times. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, urged the European Union to tackle the problems in Greece because clearly the European Union is concerned that Greece is in a serious financial situation. However, it needs to take corrective action, which thus far it has refused to or cannot do. The German chancellor has suggested that the European Union should do it for Greece. The end result is that if the European Union is unable to do this, one other organisation will, the International Monetary Fund.

I wish to conclude by noting that we should not live in a cloud cuckoo land in which we continue to borrow and spend money. Annual expenditure of €55 billion when in receipt of €30 billion in taxes is not sustainable.

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