John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Every citizen is frightened and apprehensive about the future, whether employed, unemployed, in the public or private sector, parent, grandparent, student or child. I heard a five year old child say to her mother the other day, "Am I going to have to go to America or England when I leave school?", and it brought home to me the amount of apprehension and fear on the ground.

This motion, if it were agreed or passed, would bring a definite time line for these people into the immediate future. I commend Deputy Noonan for once again capturing the mood and the pulse of the people, and for tabling the motion at this time. Members of the public know that the medicine to be doled out will not be easy, and to some extent they have been conditioned for it. They have lost all confidence in the ability of the present regime to plot a path out of it any time soon. This view is reinforced by the events of recent days which have seen our future and those of our children sold out to the EU and the IMF. We saw much of the proposed recovery plan become obsolete before the ink was dry. In the past 24 hours, for instance, the Government's growth projection have been drastically reduced by the EU, from 1.75% to 0.9% in 2011, and from 3.2% to 1.9% for 2012. This means that the budget deficit will grow at a much faster rate than was stated only seven days ago. Talk about shifting sands under our feet. We then come to the weekend when we gave away the last piece of our piggy bank, the €17.5 billion of the pensions reserve fund, which was the one good thing done by this Government in the squander mania of the Celtic tiger era. It was to be the nest egg to provide for social welfare and pension provisions into the future but the vast majority of it is now gone to cover the ineptitude and incompetence of this Government.

The body language of every statement, press conference and one-to-one interview on television over the weekend indicated that this Government is a beaten docket, that these negotiations were not really negotiations at all but were totally and absolutely one-sided. If they were negotiations, I would hate to think what the EU and IMF were looking for in the first instance. The reality of these decisions taken after the weekend is that the main agenda of our European partners was to save the euro rather than Ireland and the Government let them walk all over it. It was said to me today that the only thing not conceded in this past week was the playing of the all-Ireland finals for the next ten years at either Wembley Stadium or the Olympic Stadium in Munich.

People are crying out for some sense of certainty and stability, economic and political. This motion, if passed, would give them that. People want to get on with it and to then have a general election as soon as possible after the budget. To bring this about the finance and social welfare Bills would need to come before this House before Christmas. As it is, we will sit for only eight more days this session. These Bills could be dealt with if we sat each working day. This would give people the opportunity to give their verdict early in the New Year on the unfairness, incompetence and arrogance of this Government during the past 15 years.

I note the amendment proposed by Government proposes the usual budgetary practice. It is the usual budgetary practice for the past two decades that has us bankrupt. It is the usual budgetary practice that could have us voting on a finance Bill next March. This country and its people do not have the time or the patience to wait until then.

I commend the motion to the House.

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