Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

Yes, it is on the record.

I wish to speak about some of the positives for the country. Things can change quickly. Within a two year period Ireland and the international economy could be in a totally different position. The question is whether we have the confidence of the people to make the decisions required over the coming two years. People speak about a four-year plan, which is important but what is very important is what will happen next year. My constituents ask me how much money they will have next year, how much they will have for the provision of their children's education and their family obligations. This is what they want to know.

We can get through this if we concentrate on what is good about Ireland. We are part of arguably the second largest currency in the world. This brings great comfort to our position because the euro cannot fail. We are a small country in the eurozone and economic and political solidarity mean we have big people behind us. This is a colossal opportunity the country would not have had were it outside the eurozone. This country still has 1.8 million people at work although there were 700,000 more ten years ago. Every effort must be made to protect every single one of those 1.8 million jobs. I agree the economy has shrunk considerably both last year and this year but it is still significantly bigger than was the case four, five or eight years ago and people will have to get used to income levels which pertained back in 2000 or thereabouts. We have significant wealth in this country and we are a much wealthier country than was the case ten years ago as shown by the billions of euro in personal deposits all over the country. I understand personal deposits come to approximately €80 billion, and the total is €160 billion if corporate and multinational depositors are included. This wealth needs to be tapped for positive employment-related activity.

Our workforce is very well-educated with high levels of attainment in third level education compared to ten years ago. Other countries have come through this, such as Finland. In the early 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union, its major trading bloc, within a matter of five years Finland came back to being one of the most sustainable, successful economies in Europe because it made the right, corrective decisions and put in place proper investment in education and new technologies.

We can learn lessons from the past. The first lesson we must learn is that the mistake of the 1980s was that we did not deal with the correction early enough. We allowed it to continue and a lost generation was the result. I am 41 years of age. People of my age and slightly older felt the only opportunity for them was to leave this country because throughout the 1980s we did not do what we should have done to clean up the mess that was once again created by Fianna Fáil. The Government of the early 1980s made an attempt at it but it was not enough. It was that failure, in my view, which led to a ten-year period of recession. If we have learned anything from that time, we will know we have to make the corrective decisions early and quickly as a means of trying to come out of a recession.

The other lesson we need to learn is that we must smash the cosy consensus. This place has been a doss house, effectively, for the past ten years or so, where people cannot speak their minds. Everyone one of us is elected in our own right but there is a dreadful centralisation of power on the other side of the House and on this side. As a result, people cannot speak their minds freely because in some way they will be off message or not exactly close to the position of their party or of the Government. Each of us elected to this House has a mandate in his or her own right to speak our own mind and to break the cosy consensus. One of the people who questioned budgets over the good years is Deputy Richard Bruton and he was told by the then Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, to go off and commit suicide. I note Deputy Ahern is now writing in Polish publications, telling us what should be done in Poland and what should happen in Gambia. Where is he today? He is an elected Member to the Parliament of this country and he is not here - unless he takes his opportunity between now and 5 p.m. to speak. Where is he today?

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