Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

-----at a time when we are talking about cutting social welfare is wrong.

Another idea would be to look at the banking situation. There is a continuing credit crunch and this is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Apart from anything else, and apart from the capitalisation and the banks trying to repair their balance sheets, there is the imperative that the Irish banking system will have to bring loans back into line with deposits. This will involve considerable deleveraging. If somebody were to ask me today at what point in time would the Irish banking system be able to give sufficient credit to enable us to get the proper level of growth to reach this target by 2014, I could not honestly answer but I could say that there are alternative sources of funds available. For example, the system has been used in the United States whereby business owners have been allowed to temporarily tap into their own personal pension funds to source much-needed working capital without penalty from the tax authorities. In this country, small and medium enterprises are failing almost daily. Their failure is not the result of unprofitability in the medium term but rather because they cannot source the necessary cash flow. I estimate that approximately €80 billion is in Irish managed pension assets. Having a temporary and regulated access to this money now would help thousands of viable but struggling small to medium businesses to survive.

A new approach to mortgage repayments has been put forward. I support this approach and I have written about it and I understand it is now the subject of representations to the National Treasury Management Agency and to NAMA. Many people who bought their homes at the peak of the property market are now in negative equity. It is likely, if more remedial action is not taken now, that thousands of families will have high debt levels over the coming decade. Such widespread debt levels will have considerable social and economic consequences so it is vital we take action now to alleviate it for everybody's sake.

A number of solutions have already been suggested, including allowing people to extend their mortgages over longer periods and giving some people the option of renting back their houses from the bank. We need to look at this problem differently. It appears there are two distinct and independent identifiable component parts to a house purchase: the house structure itself and the land on which the house is built. By separating the two parts we can devise a solution where the mortgage can be reasonably discharged on the house structure within an acceptable period but the house builder continues to pay a lease on the land on which the house sits for a 90-year period. This approach, or an adaptation of this approach, would not only help to re-ignite the housing market but it would protect people who are trapped in negative equity.

On the subject of turning intellectual property into profits, the path from research and development to economic success is first, research, second, invention, third, intellectual property and fourth, commercial success. Ireland should now adopt a policy of becoming a world leader in the latter half of this path, specifically in the process of commercialising intellectual property and making Ireland a centre of excellence in turning intellectual property into profits. We have the structures, the reputation, the expertise and the people to take intellectual property which has already been developed and turn it into a real income stream.

Time does not allow me to speak about other proposals in detail but I will articulate them both here in the House and elsewhere. I refer to encouraging immigrants to invest in new businesses here; turning the migration of graduates into a positive rather than a negative which it is at the moment; radical reform of the bankruptcy laws; a study of the tax systems of other countries to see where tax changes are being made which would benefit us if we adapted our taxation system, such as the recent measures outlined by the United Kingdom Government regarding a tax on video games. Cash on deposit amounts to €100 billion and it could be a source of business credit. The Institute of Taxation has advanced very interesting proposals in this regard.

This austerity package is needed by the country but it has to be accompanied by measures to create hope and which will give people the belief there is a future in this country. It has to be accompanied by an appropriately targeted stimulus package otherwise, instead of the light at the end of the tunnel, we will be talking about the tunnel at the end of the light.

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