Noel Treacy (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

I support the amendment as proposed by the Minister for Finance. I pay tribute to him for the calm, reasonable, humane and equitable way that he has dealt with this situation.

We have a serious constitutional responsibility in this House to distribute the resources of the State as available to Government and this House has a mandatory responsibility under the Constitution to distribute those resources. The challenge in a situation where there are diminishing returns is to distribute diminishing resources in as fair and equitable a way as possible taking into account the first calls that are on those resources. The Government has addressed this in the past two budgets, and more particularly has given clear leadership in enunciating to the nation at large the responsibility that we as a nation, as a people and as a society led by Government, collectively, on a consensual basis, agree within this House on the best way possible to distribute those available resources. If the Opposition constantly opposes for long-term, short-term and medium-term political gain the Government on what is a constitutional responsibility, it is only confusing people on the Government's responsibility to this Parliament.

I see from the motion that there is even confusion within the Opposition's own ranks. One of those whose name appears on this motion is no longer a Member of this House. He has left in a state of frustration because, he says, there was no consensual approach within Opposition to supporting Government to achieve that which was best in the interests of the common good. That is basically the theme of the confusion and the demoralised state in which this young man has left this House. If that is the position with somebody who has come in to give economic advice to one sector of Parliament, and he leaves in that state of confusion, how will the people of Ireland, watching and listening to the Opposition's utterances on a continuous basis over the past two years, feel about the role of this Parliament in discharging its constitutional duty to the people of Ireland on a consistent basis when that confusion reigns?

There has been a strong commitment over the years on different occasions when there was a crisis in this nation that politicians together in Parliament, elected by the people with a sovereign mandate to discharge their obligations to the people, would do so in the interests of that which was best for the people. The Minister, led by the Taoiseach, stated clearly over the past two years that faced with the challenges we had, political leadership was required and he was the first person to come forward and say that at the highest level of Government and the highest level of public service there would be a requirement to take a one-fifth cut in salary, never done in the history of this State previously. That is real leadership and real commitment.

We take into account then the fact that the Minister for Finance came in and produced a budget here prior to Christmas clearly enunciating the resources available, the challenges that were there and the requirements on us as a Parliament under the Constitution to discharge our duties. That man, who put that budget before this Parliament, had it ratified by Parliament and had the legislation subsequently ratified by Parliament, went back and looked at how it was best, fair and reasonable to deal with the resources of State taking into account the need to reduce public sector salaries. Where there was a distortion, an unevenness and an unfairness at a particular grade of public servant, he examined that in totality and specifically, had consultation and ultimately realised that to be fair to everybody the burden had to be shared on an equitable basis taking into account, like the State itself, the capacity of the individual public servant grade to take the required reductions in order to-----

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