James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

The previous speaker said she would not talk about figures but launched straight into numbers, forgetting the big statistic of more than 452,000 people unemployed in the country. The Minister for Health and Children spoke about increasing life expectancy but when vaccination as a health factor is stripped out, less than 10% of health involves longevity improvements in the country over the past 20 years. I remind the Minister that €1 billion in overtime in the HSE has not been tackled and €121 million has been spent on taxis. There are currently 716 grade 8 administrators in the HSE whereas there were only 13 when it was formed, as far as I can remember. She might consider such issues.

We are not here to debate health matters but our country and the financial morass in which we find ourselves as a consequence of this Government's handling of the banking crisis and the economy. My colleague, Deputy Michael Noonan, yesterday spoke of the quiet fear that has taken hold in Ireland and generated by the Government. The spin doctor thinking behind this is crudely obvious. The Government will float the idea of taking a fiver off the old-age pension. What is a fiver? It will soften the pensioners up and get them ready for the cut.

It is part of an undeclared war on the middle classes. Does the Government remember them? These people worked hard, contributed to pensions and invested such funds in what they believed were safe places such as bank shares. My grandmother would say "as safe as houses" but we all know how safe they are now. She would also say "as good as money in the bank", which is just not the option it used to be either. These people are hitting their pension years without any of the fruit of their hard labour; they dread the next blow, the fiver gone, the free television licence taken away and the free travel reduced.

The Government started the war against the middle class when it cosied up to the builders, developers, bankers and light touch regulators. This Government has now shifted its affections to Mr. Ollie Rehn and the bondholders, and the only consistency is the war on the middle classes. The view of this Government is that everybody must be kept happy other than the hard-working and hard-pressed population at home.

The first duty of the Government is to vindicate the rights of its citizens but when the Government took over several banks, did it investigate how thousands of those citizens were actively misled and persuaded to take out loans they could never repay? Banks have a duty of care to customers but despite this some banks suggested to customers that they should claim a room would be rented in a house that the customer planned to buy, even when the bank knew this would not be true. Some duty of care. We also know some banks accepted income statements they knew to be false and extra money was shoved at people. In foreclosure cases, it is becoming increasingly apparent that innocent people were effectively bamboozled into borrowing money. We all know the stories of people receiving uninvited telephone calls from bank managers offering money but the Government has not investigated it. Unless some of the impoverished and terrified people in negative equity go to court to challenge banks on their actions, nothing will happen with this Government.

The Government has betrayed its own people at every opportunity and continues to do so. Right now the Irish people are the shareholders of several banks and the first duty of those banks, and by inference, the Government, is to those shareholders. That duty has gone unfulfilled.

This morning the newspapers are full of an abject apology on the part of the HSE for its failure to vindicate the rights of one family of children, a failure so bad it would put shivers up the spine of any parent. The apology should not have come just from the HSE but from the Minister for Health and Children and her Minister of State with responsibility for children. The buck stops with them, or at least it should.

The Harney years in health care will go down in history as the lagging jacket years, the "nothing to do with me" years. They were the years in which the Minister insulated herself against pain, failure and responsibility using a lagging jacket called the HSE. It was nothing to do with her if pregnant women were told their babies had died when the babies are alive and well inside them. That involves the HSE. The X-rays that were misreported had nothing to with her, and neither has the €1 billion or €2 billion to be taken from a patently inefficient system. She will just allow the HSE make the decision.

I welcome a positive development today in the announcement that planning has been approved for the metro. This is one of many infrastructural projects we need, as it could yield 37,000 jobs and make us competitive. Fine Gael's NewERA plan takes in renewable energy, the extension of broadband throughout the country and the mending of water pipes which lose 47% of water that is expensive to distribute. These are jobs are not just for their own sake, but to make us competitive.

Ultimately, people feel builders, developers, bankers and bondholders come before the crying needs of the citizen. This is shameful but not shocking because it is part of a long-established pattern. The Government has lost the confidence of the people and the markets. How long will it be before it loses the confidence of this House? It already has and the people who support the Government but no longer believe in it must have the courage to put an end to it so that Ireland can have a new start and leadership providing solutions that will give our people real hope and the markets real confidence.

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