Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The evidence internationally is that our teenage students have slipped in the area of literacy for which the Minister, Deputy Coughlan, is now directly responsible. In every Ministry she has held, she has failed to live up to the reputation with which she came.

Fine Gael will continue to set out its own strategy, which will be about changing the way our politics work and will ask the people for the opportunity to abolish Seanad Éireann. It will reduce the number of Deputies and change this theatre here and make it a place where the big announcements are made, where transparency is evident, where accountability is had and where Ministers respond to legitimate questions from Members. We will implement our NewERA stimulus plan to provide over 100,000 jobs through commercial entities dealing with water, communications and renewables. We will reform the banking system so that we will never again have a situation where greed and incompetence will bring down the entire country. We will reinvent Government and transform our health system by bringing the Dutch model of health care to Ireland.

For all of this to happen, Ireland needs the kind of rational, reforming Government that Fine Gael provided in the past and will provide again in the not too distant future. What it does not need is a continuation of an incompetent Government of abject recklessness that lacks compassion for the people and the times in which they now live. These times are too dangerous. The problems we face are too serious for a Government that continues to cripple the spirit of Ireland and our people and which continues to destroy any prospect of growth with sky high taxes and to leave in place waste and inefficiency. There is nothing in the Government's document about real reform of the way we deliver our public services.

I speak to multinational companies or small businesses and explain our clear aspiration that by 2016 we should demonstrate that Ireland is the best small country in the world in which to do business. I ask the big firms what Government could do to help them improve the atmosphere and environment in which they do business, whether through planning, transport, communication or energy costs. I asked the person in a small sweet shop in Donegal what he wanted or would like to see a Government doing for him, and he mentioned the abolition of PRSI for lower paid employees and a number of other areas where help could be provided. However, he also pointed out that for his little shop, he needed 21 different licences to operate as a retailer, because of the tunnel vision of all the different independent systems that have no interconnection.

The budget announced yesterday by the Government has completely failed to understand the savings that could be made, the efficiencies that could be created, the respect that could be generated for public services and the dignity of those working in those services who want to give of their best for their country, but cannot because the system the Government has allowed to develop over the years strangles their initiative, creativity and willingness to contribute to their country. I urge the Taoiseach never to forget that the people of this country are pragmatic. If we explain the scale and nature of the problem and the timescale for dealing with it, they will want to contribute, provided their contribution is respected and fair. What was done in yesterday's budget is palpably unfair. When I asked the Taoiseach a question on it earlier this morning, he did not answer it. Carers, the disabled, the blind and the widowed are all affected and because of all the time the Taoiseach spent dealing with the political issue of the pension problem, he forgot there was a better way to do things. He need not have imposed these cuts on carers, disabled, blind and widowed to save €96 million if he had taken the advice we offered him.

I see nothing in the budget to repair the damage done to Ireland's international reputation. I have with me a letter from Japan describing how taxi drivers in Osaka speak about Ireland in a negative way because of their perception of our country. The credit of people in the wholesale and retail business is being cancelled in Egypt, India and China because of the situation the Government has allowed to develop. As far as I can see, this budget does not deal with the central issues of vision, growth, job stimulus and investment. It imposes further taxes on jobs and does not deal with the future potential of our country. I decry the continued pathetic attempts of the Government. It is time for it to go and for it to give the people an opportunity to have a say with a new Government.

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