Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I will but I was not expecting to speak until tomorrow.

I commend Fine Gael for tabling this Private Members' motion. Economic strategy and how we get the country out of its crisis is the question of the day. The Government has again, however, turned away from an economic solution. Earlier the House voted on continuing the same policy of the past two years concerning a blanket bank guarantee. The Government forced through a motion to extend that blanket guarantee to the banking institutions that have failed this economy, the banking institutions that brought us to our knees, that will not lend to small and medium enterprises and that will not provide a credit flow. The taxpayer has been asked to bail out all of these institutions, with €24 billion going to Anglo Irish Bank, €8 billion to Irish Nationwide and recapitalisation for the Bank of Ireland and AIB Bank.

Taxpayers' money is like confetti as far as the Government is concerned when it is used to bail out the banks and to fill the black hole in Anglo Irish Bank. It is outrageous. It is the focus of the Government, it is what it has done for the past two years and now it is telling us it will be extended for another three months and longer if necessary. When that is the mindset of a Government, how will we ever get out of the economic crisis?

If there is any money in the coffers, where should it go? To job retention and creation, to reskilling to move the economy on and to provide economic confidence for consumers.

We saw the CSO figures at the start of the month, which showed the road haulage business, an economic barometer for economic activity within the country as distinct from foreign direct investment exports, was down by 40%, a colossal reduction. That is the real barometer of the slide in economic activity, with 13.7% of the population on the live register, even with the slight adjustment for September, when there is always a seasonal improvement.

In the past two years, 100,000 people have emigrated, bringing us back to the 1980s and the 1950s. Those leaving are the ones we would expect to provide the impetus in the smart economy about which the Government is forever talking. Instead they will go to the four corners of the earth, to Australia, the USA, Britain and some of them to Asia where they will have job opportunities in economies that recognise the value of their education and talent. That is not the way forward.

The first thing the Government must do is decide its priorities. Does it want to bail out a failed banking system with an unlimited guarantee or to focus the resources of the country and skills of its people on trying to get the economy running again? The Minister should realise that there is only one priority — the small and medium enterprise sector. Half of all employment in the country is in that sector, with 65% of private employment in it, yet it is crying out for credit. SMEs cannot secure loans, even overdrafts are few and far between.

There is an almost unlimited pot of money in the European Investment Bank, €30 billion, for our banks to invest in new small and medium enterprises but it is not happening.

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