Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I thank Deputy Boyd Barrett for being constructive. The route we must travel is about the process of recovery. Growing the economy is central to that. That is why the Government is putting the emphasis on jobs and why proposals in regard to what we want to do to get people back to work and to increase the number of people in employment will be brought before the House next month.

The decisions made by Government in regard to the banking issue are aimed at recovery. They are aimed at having a strategy to allow the two pillar banks to recover and raise private capital thereby reducing their dependence on the State and or public finances and, more critically, allowing them to lend to business so that business in turn will be able generate employment, thus getting people back to work.

We must see this as a process. No single part of this series of decisions made over time by Government can be singled out and identified as being right or wrong. As such, the decisions in regard to the banks in terms of restructuring them and getting them to lend again and the decisions in regard to what we are attempting to do in terms of reducing the interest rate, what we do in terms of jobs and the wider European economy must be seen as part of the overall recovery effort which is aimed at getting people back to work. What matters ultimately is how all of this impacts on the lives of the people we represent. We must ensure we have a strong, robust economy, people at work, people returning to work and businesses getting back on their feet while minimising the impact of what has to be done on the taxpayer and the public finances. All of this must be done as part of the recovery process.

While we will differ from time to time on some of the detailed individual components of that recovery process, it is important that the message communicated is confident and optimistic. Part of our recovery process is to re-instil and re-ignite confidence in our economy. The Government has its views on how this should be done. We are taking decisions and moving forward. Individual decisions will be debated. We need to get into the thinking space that we are going to work our way out of this problem and bring about recovery.

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