Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

Since September 2008, the people of Ireland have been suffering traumatic stress due to what is basically an economic war. The stress, anxiety, fear and irrational thinking is not much different from what would be seen in a real war. The big difference is that in a real war the anxieties are worse, the suffering is greater and the post traumatic stress remains forever.

The first casualty of any war is the truth, and we are seeing that here. The previous Minister for Finance finished his Budget Statement in December 2009 with the phrase, "We have turned the corner". The truth, as a casualty of our economic war, hit a low point in the weeks preceding the arrival of the IMF in Ireland. The Minister's denial of the arrival of the IMF was the lowest point reached. However, it was clear to many of us there was something wrong. At the time, the sudden conversion to consensus politics by the former Minister, John Gormley, was the first sign on the wind of this. It was only on Fine Gael's first visit as a parliamentary party to the Department of Finance, led by the current Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, that we were informed that the budget adjustments required to be made a few weeks later would not save €3.5 billion, but €7 billion.

The arrival of Mr. Olli Rehn, the Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, was the first public sign that Europe had lost confidence in the previous Government. Things were so bad at that time that the people felt the IMF could do no worse than Fianna Fáil. Many people on the streets were delighted the IMF was coming in because they had lost all confidence in the previous Government. The awful mismanagement of our economy at that time is the reason for this debate on the IMF and the European Central Bank, two organisations people here knew little about a few short months ago.

For the sake of the future of this country, we must regain self belief and confidence and believe that we can get out of this situation by working together. When the Second World War ended, Germany was ruined both physically and economically. However, within two decades, Germany was once again an economic powerhouse within Europe. We have a job to do. We must repair our battered reputation in Europe. Everybody who understands European affairs, knows our reputation in Europe is in tatters. We must also regain our international reputation. For that reason, our Taoiseach and senior Ministers are travelling throughout Europe and the world. They are trying to regain the reputation this country had just a few years ago.

We must also protect the most vulnerable people in society. The decisions we make must ensure we can pay pensions, gardaí, nurses and teachers in five years' time. We need the people to show the resilience and motivation the people of Europe showed in the aftermath of the Second World War. Therefore, we must put a stop to the attitude that has become prevalent of not being responsible for causing the crisis and therefore having no responsibility to pay for it. We are not shareholders in Ireland nor are we employees of Ireland. We are citizens. In Government, Fianna Fáil abused the trust of its citizens and we have been left with that legacy. As the new Government, Fine Gael and the Labour Party, along with the people, will not default on their responsibilities to the country. We must work together to put ourselves back on the path to recovery rather than blame each other for what has gone wrong.

Some Opposition Members have a constant chorus demanding we default on our obligations to repay our loans. That surprises me, because it is the poor, the less well off and the most vulnerable who will be hardest hit if we default. I cannot understand why Opposition Members continue with this demand. They may lack understanding of what happens when countries default on their international obligations but history demonstrates what happens. If Opposition Members can demonstrate clear outcomes resulting from taking the default path, they should explain to us the position of the people following default. They should explain what happened in Argentina following default, when the numbers of less well off increased. There was an increase in the number of people in a worse position and that situation lasted for a significant number of years.

If that is the collateral damage the Opposition Members would like they should explain to the people that is how they want to go. If we default in the future it will be the least well off in society who will suffer the most. As it stands, paying for the legacy of Fianna Fáil's ruination of our reputation and our economy means that our schools, hospitals and social services will be receiving less funding for the next decade regardless of what we do. Already people are suffering and we do not need to compound that with half-baked ideas about defaulting and walking away from our responsibilities as a nation. We have taken that responsibility on ourselves and we should grow up and act like it.

There is a high degree of uncertainty surrounding macroeconomic projections for Ireland. Nobody quite knows what future growth will be. Even the best economists have repeatedly got it wrong over the past decade. We have a better idea of what tax receipts will be but again that is unpredictable and we need to work with the best knowledge available to us now. Government spending is more predictable but is not fully predictable. As we have seen, social welfare costs and other costs of supporting the less well off in our society will increase in times of recession and we are trying to protect these people. What has happened for the new Government and the Minister, Deputy Noonan, in recent weeks? The two parties that have been in power for less than 50 days are putting their shoulders to the wheel in trying to sort these things out. We are getting control of the banking situation. We are not out of the woods yet and we still have much to do. We need to look at regulatory mechanisms within the banking sector and we will bring those forward.

Next week we will have a jobs initiative. We will do our best to get people back to work. We will consider everything that will reduce the burden on the least well off and the lowest paid in our society. In the next few months we will have a comprehensive spending review of every Department and we will reform how we frame budgets. It would be more useful for the Opposition to take on the mentality that we are fighting our way out of an economic war, to work with the Government in putting forward proposals and to look at the Government proposals and see how they can work. I sat on the Opposition benches for five years, two and a half of which I acted as Fine Gael spokesperson on health. While it is much easier to give out about Government policy, I tried to be as constructive as I could when dealing with what I regarded as some of the most flawed health policies proposed by any government. The Opposition needs to take up that kind off spirit. It is easier to give out but if that is the role it takes, it will be ignored not just by Government but also by the people.

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