Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

Had I proceeded along the lines suggested by Deputy Ó Caoláin and avoided the decision on the overall public service pay and pensions bill, which we believed was necessary, the curtailment of services would have been all the greater. The Deputy cannot have it every way. He cannot tell us to maintain services and avoid reductions in pay while continuing with a budgetary strategy in respect of which he claims to accept that €4 billion has to be saved. If he wants to save €4 billion, he should save it but he has to find the money. If it his view that €2 billion should be raised through taxes, he should explain to the people why he thinks the unemployment level should be higher than is the case at present. Does he not think it is already too high?

We have to work within a budgetary framework which has a deficit of the order of 11%. That is not a sustainable level and it has to be reduced in the coming years. The luxury of the Deputy's position is that he can stand up and say all these things to his constituency groups and people will say he is great. However, he does not have the responsibility for making it all add up.

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