Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister for his speech and for his courtesy when my colleagues and I visited his Department yesterday. The Minister is always very courteous and easy to deal with and I thank him for this. Things are very bad and people are very down and depressed. When I went knocking on doors after the summer, people were angry but that anger has almost left them by now. They are down and do not see any hope of recovery. While this varies from family to family, I wish to stress at the outset how gloomy and down people are at present. Members of almost every family are out of work. Parents are deprived of the company of their adult children who are to be found everywhere in the world but in Australia, Canada, the United States and England in particular. Many grandparents have no contact with their grandchildren in far-flung places and their biggest thrill is to talk to them on Skype in the middle of the night. The statistics support the gloomy picture I am painting as 350,000 people are unemployed and more than 100,000 young people have emigrated. The banking system is crashed, banjaxed and in the hands of the State. Moreover, the country costs €20 billion more to run than is collected in taxes. The Government is swinging from crisis to crisis, there is no growth, no hope, no optimism and no economic plan. It was not always like this. When the rainbow Government left office in 1997, 100 people per day were starting work, there was a good standard of living, very good health services, fine schools and the budget under the guidance of Deputy Quinn was in surplus for the first time in two generations. Then Fianna Fáil came to power and the bubble economy was created by that party. Three years ago, the bubble burst and the rest is history. I do not intend to go through the high points as they have been rehearsed on many occasions.

The focus of today's debate is the economy and Fine Gael's priority is to grow the economy and to create jobs again. No country has cut its way out of recession or taxed its way out of recession but many countries have grown their way out of recession. Present Government policies are continuing the declining gyre and the downward vicious circle and it will require a major new initiative to shock the economy into reversing its downward spin, thereby spinning back up again in a growing economy in which the vicious circle becomes a virtuous circle. While I hope this can be done, it needs the dynamic of change and the dynamic of a new Government with new policies to begin the climb from despair to optimism and hope.

The first plank that must be put in place is that the public must be given absolute certainty about their future. I acknowledge that the Government now has started this process. While Fine Gael has been asking it to do so for the past three years, at least now it is setting and confirming the 2014 target and is committing to budgetary profiles to get there in instalments. Had some of the points contained in the today's speeches by the Taoiseach and the Minister been done three years ago, it would have given hope and optimism. However, the Minister's biggest problem when trying to provide certainty is that no one believes him any more. He has been wrong so often, his figures have been so outlandish so often and his forecasts have been so off the rails so often that no matter what he says now, he lacks credibility. I do not wish to personalise this but I make the point that the Government lacks the credibility to provide such certainty. However, the first plank is certainty and if Fine Gael can co-operate with the Government in providing some certainty by reconfirming the 3% target for 2014, then it will do that.

Once certainty has been established, the second thing that must be done is to restore confidence. Again, there is no confidence at present. The savings ratios in deposit accounts by Irish citizens used to average out at approximately 8% but now have risen to 11%. This constitutes an increase in saving of just under 40%. No one will spend or invest if they are unsure about the future. One fundamental of personal behaviour is that one does not take a punt in the dark unless one is a total gambler and one needs to be certain about what is happening in the future before spending one's money. Another amazing statistic demonstrates that in the words of the industry, Irish people have begun to deleverage or in other words, they are paying off their loans. A recent Central Bank report indicates that over the last 12 months Irish citizens, in a series of personal decisions in individual households, have paid off €6.8 billion in credit card balances, overdrafts in banks and so on. This is an amazing amount of money but when people fear the future, they pay their debts and save money and the consequence of people so doing is that very little money remains in circulation. I forget which eminent Sunday newspaper columnist referred to the origin of the word "currency". He observed it derives from the Latin verb currere, to flow. I note the Minister is a classical scholar and that there are very few of us left.

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