Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

We need a reformed political system and a talented, fit for purpose public service needs to be developed once more. We need new policies to support growth and jobs. A fatal flaw in this budget is that there is nothing in it to get the economy growing again. The Minister will recall that even though his four year plan published two weeks ago is based on a growth rate in 2011 of 1.75%, on 29 November, the European Commission marked that down to 0.9%. His figures will not reach target unless we have growth in the economy. He has been advised of that by the European Commission and he is still persisting in proceeding without any growth or jobs strategy.

We need a fair and just society where the test of any policy is in the answer to two very simple questions Is it a fair policy and does it protect the most vulnerable in society? It is against these objectives that I intend to measure this budget.

The Minister was very sparse in his detail today. Two minutes before he sat down we got a résumé of the main features of the budget. It is difficult to know quickly when he does not read out the major detail of the budget what exactly are the full implications of it. If we take the public expenditure area first, of the €6 billion correction, to which the Government has committed, €4 billion amounts to public expenditure cuts and €2 billion amounts to taxation. It is very difficult to know what the expenditure cuts are in the documents presented. We had an experience in the olden days when Mr. Haughey was king of country where a budget would be presented and when we came into Government we found the figures did not add up.

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