Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

On the matter of judgment, is it now the case that the markets, in particular, are looking at the lack of growth in the economy as much as they are looking at the fiscal position? I draw to the Taoiseach's attention to comments made at the weekend by two senior business people in an article in The Sunday Business Post. The first was by Mr. Martin Murphy, managing director of Hewlett-Packard, who placed an emphasis on job creation and said there has not been enough discussion about job creation in the lead up to the budget. The second comment was by Dr. Craig Barrett, the former chief executive officer of Intel Ireland, who warned against cutting too deeply in next month's budget. He stated:

You need to invest in these bad times. The only companies I know that have been ultimately successful have invested their way out of a recession and not tried to save their way out of it.

It seems that in both of those cases an argument is being put to the Taoiseach regarding the concentration by Government on cutting without investing in getting us out of the recession. The warning they make about what we are doing, which is shared by many other commentators, is that a cut of the order of €6 billion is too deep and will damage growth and the potential for job creation. The Taoiseach says it is a judgment call but I put it to him that his judgment in this matter may be wrong.

See this speech in context