Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I congratulate the Ceann Comhairle on his appointment and the Government parties on their success in the election. The new Ministers and Ministers of State are faced with a huge task and it is in all our interest that they achieve their goals for economic renewal and reform of the way politics is conducted. As this is my first contribution to the 31st Dáil, I thank the people of Cork South-Central for re-electing me. I am joined in the Chamber by my constituency colleague, Deputy Buttimer, who I wish well, and Deputy O'Brien, who represents Cork North-Central.

The Minister for Finance will probably play the key role in Government over the next several weeks. He faces substantial challenges at EU level in regard to fiscal matters and the bank stress tests due to be conducted at the end of March. We are witnessing an all out assault at European level on our right as a sovereign nation to set our own corporate tax rate. I welcome the Government's efforts to vigorously resist this attack. The interest rate on the EU-IMF bailout needs to be renegotiated. Deposits continue to haemorrhage from Irish banks, which are increasingly relying on external support from the Central Bank and the ECB. Bond yields for other vulnerable eurozone countries continue to rise. These are serious issues which have to be addressed at European level. I wish the Minister and his team well in the negotiations which will take place next week.

I welcome that the Government has committed itself to introducing a jobs budget in its first 100 days in office. I presume it will be announced some time in June. This is not the occasion to start picking holes in the objectives the Government has set out for that budget. I look forward to having a constructive engagement in which every Deputy will be given opportunities to submit ideas.

As someone with business and commercial experience, the key issue for me is to aggressively dismantle the cost of doing business in this country. There are major barriers to people who want to set up in business and to viable businesses that want to survive in our economy. The Government will need to set as its key objective in the jobs budget a reduction in the cost of doing business. The CSO figure we saw today was a sobering one if we needed any reminding of the challenge that lies ahead in tackling the scourge of unemployment that is affecting every single town and village in the country.

On the fiscal and budgetary side, major challenges also lie ahead for the new Government. It has committed to the €6 billion adjustment which has already been enacted for 2011, despite opposing it trenchantly when its members were on this side of the House, but that is politics. It has also committed to a budget for next year which is in line with the national recovery plan and the overall target of €3.6 billion. That is where its commitment ends, apart from a general objective of achieving a deficit of 3% by 2015. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, said during the election campaign that the Labour Party's plan to kick the can down the road to 2016 would have added an extra €5 billion to the national debt, but it appears that Fine Gael has gone some way towards kicking the can down the road and is presumably adding €2 billion or €2.5 billion to the national debt by not sticking to the 2014 target that was set out in the national recovery plan. We have no details whatsoever about the budgetary deficit for 2013, 2014 and 2015. I agree with the Taoiseach's comment today that it should be the objective to go back to the bond markets so that we can access funding on the international money markets, but what chance do we have of achieving credibility and convincing those markets of our bona fides in fiscal management if we are not willing to give any details except an overall figure for 2012 and no details whatsoever for any of the subsequent years?

I look forward to engaging in far more detail on all of these issues. There is much goodwill towards the new Government, which deserves a fair wind behind it. I wish it well in the major task it has ahead, and I and my party will certainly work constructively to support its objectives.

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