Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

I am sure the Taoiseach will join me in commending the emergency services whose members spent last weekend fighting gorse fires that threatened farmland and family homes. I have no doubt their sterling work has saved lives. It is ironic that we see such work being done at a time when the public sector and public servants are under threat from the Taoiseach's Administration.

The Taoiseach mentioned the growth in exports. The Department of Finance, in its latest economic update for the European Commission, states starkly the Government has achieved a growth rate as near to zero as one could get. The unemployment rate is at crisis point, as the Taoiseach concedes, and the domestic economy is in a mess. We still pump expensive money into Anglo Irish Bank. Although the writing is on the wall and it is now very apparent the austerity approach is not working and will not work, the Government refuses to wake up and smell the coffee. The Taoiseach now tells us there will be a jobs initiative. The language being used in respect of the budget is interesting; we are told it will be fiscally neutral, or revenue neutral, and that there will also be counterbalancing measures to give it life. Will the Taoiseach shed some light on this? How does he propose to invest in a serious jobs strategy? What cutbacks or taxation increases does he envisage to facilitate the jobs initiative? If the Taoiseach wishes to talk about confidence and morale in the country, will he at some point consider that the economic strategy of cutbacks and deflation, so ably passed into his hands by the previous Administration, has not worked and will not?

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