Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

However, I note the Deputy's support for the Bill. Having given that general caveat, I will comment on some of her remarks. I am rather tempted to refer to the Battersea power station rather than the Chelsea power station. While reserving the position of the Minister for Finance on the matter, I would be amazed if we were to become involved as a partner in projects of that type abroad in the context of this discussion. As was said, it is an unfortunate aspect of the world in which we live that the markets are god. In a sense, every European country has found them to be not necessarily an infallible god - far from that. It is not possible for any country, however strongly tempted, to simply disregard the markets. That has been attempted on a few occasion over the past 30 years by one or two governments in Europe but the attempt has not been successful or sustainable.

I refer to some general points raised during the debate. The phrase "jobless growth" originated in the late 1980s when growth came back into the economy but it was some time before there was an employment impact. Since then employment has gone up from approximately 1.1 million to 1.8 million, at which it remains. While we still have some positive job announcements, as yet, they are more than balanced out by job losses. It is unfortunate that even when one has positive momentum in the economy, jobs, in net terms, tend to lag behind somewhat.

I have the height of respect for the contribution and work of the Department of Finance but, nonetheless, I very much welcome the inquiry announced by the Minister for Fiance yesterday which, I believe, is in its interests. It will give it an opportunity to vindicate its reputation and to identify areas which need to be strengthened. Nobody has been without weaknesses in the past few years.

The analysis given by Deputy O'Donnell, in particular, of Germany and the euro was valid. One might think Germany was, in some way, a victim of the euro but that is far from the case. If Germany had a separate currency, it would soar, in particular in current circumstances, in a way that would make German exports very uncompetitive. Some of the sort of aura of political debate is that the Germans are huge beneficiaries. That is being acknowledged increasingly by German commentators who realise where their interests lie.

A debate is going on across the western world, not only in Europe but in America and in Britain in the context of the budget of a couple of days ago, on the relative weighting of a stimulus package versus financial consolidation and reduction of sovereign debt exposure. There is a criticism of those who, like ourselves perhaps, emphasise most the reduction of debt exposure, that it is in some way killing off the economy, whether it is achievable and so on. There has been a move in the past few months in the direction of giving a priority to reducing sovereign indebtedness. That is against the background that several stronger economies had stimulus packages in the past couple of years. We had no capacity to have a stimulus package. The capital programme is important and we discussed a particular corner of that yesterday at the Select Committee on Finance and Public Service as it related to the Office of Public Works.

There are reservations about to what extent a stimulus could be kept within the economy or leak out of it. In the early 1980s, the then Fianna Fáil Government attempted to row against the tide and introduced a major capital programme in 1981 and 1982. It gave a temporary boost to the economy but at the expense of seriously increasing the debt exposure. Broadly speaking, Mitterand's France tried to do the same thing back in 1983 but it was not successful beyond the short term.

The main emphasis must be on a sharp improvement in competitiveness, accepting that we had become exceptionally uncompetitive. This is what we have been doing and we are already beginning to see some of the dividends.

So far I have kept this contribution unpolitical in a party sense. Naturally, any question of extending the tax base and in what particular direction is the prerogative of the Minister for Finance and the Government. I am a little bemused in a detached sort of way by the reaction to the speculative report that appeared-----

See this speech in context