Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

Despite everything that has happened, I do not believe our country is ruined beyond repair. If it were not for the banks, our problems would be manageable. With the recently announced initiatives to downsize the banks, we can come through this. The foundation stone of everything is certainty. The Fine Gael Party is committed to reducing the deficit to 3% of GDP by 2014 and to a total adjustment of €15 billion because we want to give people certainty. Once we have certainty we can build confidence in this country. This is the reason Fine Gael is committed to an extensive jobs and growth programme.

Once we have confidence people will grow in hope and optimism and begin to spend and invest again. This is the reason the Fine Gael Party believes the marginal rate of income tax must be kept low, the 12.5% of corporation tax is an essential component of our industrial policy and the 13.5 % rate of VAT should, as I proposed, be reduced to 12% when the standard rate is increased. fine Gael wants a pro-jobs tax policy so that the economy can grow and jobs can be created. My party believes we can meet our budgetary targets for the next two years and we hope that after two years of meeting our budgetary targets we will be back borrowing in the bond market at a much less penal rate than the 5.8% negotiated by the Government in the bail out package.

Fine Gael wants the IMF out of here. We are an educated, talented, accomplished people, well capable of running our own affairs.

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