Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)

Ministers are coming in here stating that the people can take bad news, they will put their shoulders to the wheel and they have taken €14 billion of cuts already. I do not accept the latter point, certainly not in the past two years. That needs to be corrected. It may be the case over three years, if the Government wants to go into that, but I still do not think there were such cuts. There were many cutbacks in capital projects and maybe the Government is including private capital spend in those cutbacks. On my figures, that is not the Government spend.

The people of this country can accept tough news. They know we have problems and they are willing to help out but they and I have a serious issue with believing anything the Government says. Even now, with the €15 billion figure, there is a lack of data on how that was achieved. I have a fair idea because I went to the confidential briefings at the Department Finance. I can add a few figures together and I know exactly from where they got it but we are not allowed to say.

The Government will not state what it will do in the budget yet it brings us all in here for a two-day debate to discuss cutbacks without the figures we need to achieve. There is no finishing line. It is like running a marathon at the weekend without knowing where it will end and running all day for fun. I will not do it, and nobody else will do it either. Let the Government give us the figure because the Minister knows what it is.

Deputy Coveney is correct in stating that we must bring the deficit down below 10% of GDP next year, and I ask the Government to give us the figure now. Tell us what it is, whether it be €5.5 billion, €6 billion, €5 billion or €4.5 billion, and let us work to that. The people need to believe what the Government is telling them, and they do not believe the Government. It is difficult for me to believe the Government because it is still only opinion unless the Government gives us the facts to back it up.

In trying to figure out how we got here, I looked at the figures for total expenditure from 2000 to 2008. For example, the health spend went from €5.3 billion to over €15.3 billion in eight years, an increase of 187%. The Exchequer pay bill went up by 118%, from €8,880 million to €19,330 million. The figures go on. Those eight years of writing cheques without proper reform or proper policy are the root of the problem, and the people need to be told that.

There is a need to explain what this figure of €15 billion is about. It is separate to the banking bailout, although part of it is the interest on bailing out the banks. The bulk of it is to address the wrong decisions made from 2000 to 2008 to spend money on public services built on false foundations or once-off revenues from housing, as if the Government applied for a mortgage based on overtime earnings only. It does not add up.

I question what was going on in Government during those eight years. Deputy Bertie Ahern needs at some stage to come in here and explain what he was doing as Taoiseach, as does Deputy Brian Cowen as the former Minister for Finance, and every other Minister who sat around the Cabinet table and watched these figures rise and rise. Nobody shouted stop. That is why we are here. When people have made their commitments, borrowed money, and got credit card and other personal debts, they will be hit with massive cutbacks over the next couple of years because of the decisions taken wrongly during those years.

I question what was going on in the Department of Finance as well. I can only assume they were told to keep quiet by Ministers and Taoisigh because nobody with financial training would sit back, watch this happening and not ask, "Hold on a minute, what is going on here?"

I accept there were improvements in some services, but these should have been achieved based on sound foundations, reform of the public sector and savings, rather than by continuing to write cheques left, right and centre. The Department of Finance blames the partnership process and states many of these demands for increases in services were in the context of the social partnership process and reflected in programmes for Government. Ministers and the Government are in charge, not the social partnership process. The social partners are not in charge. They do not run the country. They were there to discuss issues, iron out difficulties, etc. They are not to be blamed for matters going wrong.

On numerous occasions during my nine years in the House, I tried to introduce minor amendments to various Bills and Ministers told me that they could not accept them without going back and checking with the partnership process. That is a joke, and now the Government is trying to blame them. Those are matters that will be confined to history. The people know who is at fault here. They know it is Fianna Fáil and they will deal out that punishment.

The problem is that we in this House are always left trying to close the gap and fix this, and we need the will of the people to do so. That will be difficult to achieve with Fianna Fáil still over there calling the shots because the people do not believe them.

We understand we must try to work with this and we have agreed to the consensus to reduce the deficit to 3% of GDP by 2014. We accept that and we will put forward our ideas to achieve it, and we will work with that. However, the Government must understand that the people do not trust it and we will have a difficulty, even when we know we have the answers, in believing that the Government can implement them.

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