Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

The Minister of State has just made a very compelling case for the Government amendment on the timescale involved in preparing and passing the Finance Bill. It is important to bear this in mind because this important work needs to be done in a considered fashion. We need to accept on all sides of the House that people who are elected to the national Parliament come in here with the best interests of the country at heart and take the action which they believe is best to address the difficulties of the moment. The situation for the Government is different because the Government is in a position where it must make decisions and the role of the Opposition is to address those points and argue against them. However, there have been a number of occasions over the past two years, and especially over the past couple of weeks, when the interests of the country have been significantly damaged when points made by Opposition Deputies and commentators in the media have gone much further than is warranted. These comments have grievously undermined the confidence in the country and, as a result, have damaged its interests.

A point is frequently made in the House and in the media about the mandate of the Government. It is incumbent on all of us who have been elected to this House as representatives of the people to defend the mandate, as set out in the Constitution and in subsequent legislation, that is given to the Taoiseach on the formation of the Government and at frequent intervals when motions of confidence are debated in the House. There can be absolutely no doubt about the mandate of the Government. It may well be that, at some time in the future, other combinations of parties form a Government here. In view of the fact that this is a possibility, and a probability according to opinion polls, it is incumbent on people who are currently on the Opposition benches to take account of the fact that the mandate of the Government is constitutionally based on the will of the people expressed in a general election, and not in those opinion polls. We need to differentiate very clearly between our duty to uphold the constitutional provisions and the will of the people as expressed exclusively in the ballot box.

Newspaper owners benefited enormously from the financial windfall of their property supplements and they might now be peddling books with plagiarised remedies on the economic and political situation. We must differentiate ourselves from such people. When we hear a remedy put forward that calls for a number of experts from outside the political system be put in charge so that they run the country and de facto undermine the very existence of democracy, then it is time for all of us to address that and say "No". There is a constitutional provision under which a Taoiseach is elected, who then nominates a Government and goes to the President for ratification, and that this is the lawful Government of this country until beaten in a vote or defeated in an election. It would be an important step towards restoring confidence not just in the country, but also in the political system, were we to point out this fact. We can have plenty of arguments on ancillary matters, but we need to differentiate between ourselves as elected parliamentarians and those who invested unwisely and lost large amounts of money on property portfolios in Ireland or abroad and have an agenda arising from that. That is a particularly important consideration.

Reference has been made to a statement made by one of my colleagues about the experience of being in Government. I have been in the Government for a short period, but while it has been challenging, it has been fulfilling and I have found the Taoiseach and my colleagues able to face up to the challenges of the day, weighing up the options, taking advice from the Governor of the Central and the CEO of the NTMA, Mr. John Corrigan, and others, examining the options and then making decisions about the EU and IMF funding. This is very important because my experience has been positive. It has been difficult and difficult decisions have been made, but if one wants to serve the people in Government, then one would have to be prepared to face up to the difficult decisions and to face the fact that the options are not always exclusively attractive or acceptable. The decisions made in my view are taken from the best options available at this particular time.

We often forget that there are very positive indicators in the economy. There was an acknowledgment by Deputy McEntee of Fine Gael that considerable work had been done on the infrastructure of the country, and that is a testament to good investment in times when we had plenty. We also had huge investment in human resources, education and health and in other areas. We had an extraordinary level of investment in areas like pensions, social welfare payments and right across the economy, and not just in the public sector. Having faced difficult challenges over the last two years, we continue to have 1.8 million people in employment, which is twice the figure of the late 1980s. We continue have an extraordinary level of productivity, huge success in our export sector, and a move from a 10% drop in GNP in 2009 to a slight increase this year, which is de facto an 11% improvement. The 2009 drop followed from a 4% drop in 2008. There are some highly positive trends and facts to be dealt with in the real economy, as opposed to the difficulties created by the banks and the difference between funding from all sources of taxation and the expenditure of the State. These are the challenges that continue but can be addressed.

That the four year plan has been outlined allows Ireland de facto to deal with that deficit over a four-year period, rather than what we otherwise would be obliged to do, which is to make a reduction of €18.5 billion immediately. This is a positive element to which people do not normally advert. People speak as though the choice was between continuing with the status quo with an €18 billion deficit or moving into an intermediate phase. However, the status quo simply is not an option. To be fair, this is accepted by parties on all sides of the House. The position of Fine Gael in respect of the €6 billion adjustment is the same as that of the Government, although the proportion between taxation and expenditure cuts is somewhat different. There also are various differences between the parties in the House but there is general agreement on reaching the 3% target. While it was to have been reached by 2014, and I believe will be so reached comfortably, there is a year of grace now available, should that be necessary. The other point people tend to forget is that the amount of borrowing that will be required from the European Union institutions and the IMF is precisely the same as would be required in any event to deal with the services of the country and to provide them over the same timescale. This point frequently is overlooked in this respect.

Another area in which we have been extremely slow to face up to reality pertains to the consequences of a default. The consequences of a default were set out clearly by Professor Honohan in particular, as well as by Messrs Regling and Watson, in their respective reports. It would be instructive for everyone, and I intend to so do myself, to read back over these reports to ascertain exactly what they stated were the difficulties that led to the shortfall in funding, which pertained to the taxation model, and then in respect of the difficulties in employment and the banking sector. The latter are set out clearly in respect of the behaviour of senior personnel in a number of banks in the first instance, as well as the failure of the regulatory system, which Opposition parties often lay at the door of the Government. This ignores the point that, were the Government to directly control a regulatory system, this at the least inevitably would lead to charges of political interference in the financial running of what de facto are private institutions. This would completely undermine the capacity of this country or any small country which trades internationally in the manner that does Ireland, to do its business. We are obliged to export more than 90% of our goods and services and are happy to so do. Ireland is more than happy to reach the standards that are required in international markets and to sell its goods highly successfully. Moreover, it continues to do so to an extraordinary extent, even under these difficult circumstances.

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