Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael)

This should not continue. This is the craziest legislation I have seen in a long time. The figure quoted in the document is €8 million and there will be a CEO, staff and other cronies. I ask the Minister not to continue with this as it will not fly at a time when Commissioner Rehn is not long gone from our shores. He has left Ireland thinking there is no way the Government is accepting the reality for our nation. Our State should not continue to waste money.

There was some discussion about rates. Businesses are hard pressed currently and rates should not be wasted in the current manner. I would make the positive suggestion that if we are to spend money, we should not spend it on the mayor. The Minister for Finance has the power within the Finance Bills to reduce rates by 10%. In the past, the opportunity has been taken by the Minister for Finance to reduce the grant from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to each local authority. That might save tens or perhaps hundreds of millions of euro for the great black hole that is the Exchequer.

I ask that, instead of cutting the grant, the Minister would consider cutting the rate. If he does so, the sum of the reductions that will be obliged to be made by the local authorities will not go into that great black hole of the Exchequer but to the ratepayers. If the Minister wants to give hard-pressed businesses the opportunity to have some small reduction in what is paid, this is an opportunity. The rates bill is a little over €1 billion and the Minister has the power to cut it by 10%, which would mean €100 million going directly back into the pockets of ratepayers and businesspeople throughout the country in 2011.

This is a waste of time. While I am trying not to be overly political and trying to be positive, it is difficult. It is wrong to continue wasting money in this way. As I said, the gentlemen from the IMF and the European Stabilisation Fund will come here and slaughter a few sacred cows. Those sacred cows will have to be found in the Oireachtas first, whether it is in regard to the Seanad, the Presidency or otherwise.

This Bill will never be enacted. I know Fianna Fáil is playing the game with its partners in government that it will continue with this, move it through Second Stage and on until it goes to Committee Stage for further consideration, but it will never be enacted. As long as we continue to play the old political game in this Chamber, we will not get the people to support what is required to save the State. That is where we are nationally and internationally. It was where we were over the weekend, with Reuters and the BBC reporting that the negotiations had begun with State officials regarding a bailout, which they had. Nonetheless, in the old way, the Ministers stepped up to the plate on Sunday, including Deputy Batt O'Keeffe on the one o'clock news and, later, Deputy Dermot Ahern, who said on "The Week in Politics" that there were no negotiations. A couple of days later, it was admitted there were negotiations, not in regard to the sovereign debt but only in regard to trying to find a solution to the liquidity of the banks. I heard the same words from the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, when he said we did not have a capitalisation problem, purely a liquidity problem.

The old way of politics and the way things used to be done will die in the coming general election, rightly so. It is that way which has our nation in the state it is in, with others from Frankfurt, Washington and Luxembourg about to come in. They will not ask for permission, consensus or the agreement of all parties. They will set down the preconditions, which will be difficult and distasteful. What the public will not accept is the indulgence and the extravagance of this House playing a game that has to end.

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