Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

No. I have dealt with the wealth tax; that is a separate issue. The Minister is taking money from the National Pensions Reserve Fund to support the banks. Why will he not take a small amount from the fund to stimulate the economy, for example, through a schools building programme, which would create jobs and get some of the 452,000 people on the live register back to work? That in itself will create activity in local areas to stimulate further economic activity, whether in the form of garage industries or entrepreneurs doing what entrepreneurs do, which is to create employment and make things happen. However, it needs that stimulus from the Government, and this has been singularly absent to date. I acknowledge that some measures have been introduced by the Government in an effort to retain and create jobs, but it has been minuscule in the context of what we are facing. We need a substantial lift. I am suggesting that €2 billion taken from the NPRF would be money well spent, and the pensioners of the future, who will rely on the fund, would be repaid many times over if such a stimulus package were introduced.

I hope we can get through this investigation expeditiously, thoroughly and with substantial accuracy so that we can deal with these issues once and for all. However the investigation ends, though, the current policy direction of the Government is wrong in the extreme.

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