Dara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)

-----how economics has not worked in our country - it was by making our economy an expensive place to do business and sell our products abroad. All over Ireland we are competing with other destinations. Such marginal reductions in how our costs are passed on to people will indeed be of benefit to us over time.

There is a type of balance between the proposals we have today in that they address the cost of travel to our country for people coming from abroad by means of the travel tax reduction. Equally, most of the industries that can benefit from our lower VAT rate and reduced PRSI, when the latter is introduced, are in sectors where both people who travel to this country and our own people can benefit. They include the hospitality and hotel industries and other services that people can purchase. As was stated, this is a step in the right direction. If we marry that to what happened with the visit last week of the Queen of England and that yesterday of President Barack Obama it will point to a sense within the country of stopping the domino effect of negative after negative; of at least trying to push the dominoes back in the other direction. This has been a successful period in this country and there is no doubt the direction in which the country is being sailed by Captain Kenny, as the Taoiseach has been termed, is one in which all of us can have great confidence. We can have great optimism in that future.

I came from Cork City Council. Many Members of the Dáil have served on local authorities. When we do our annual budgets they must be revenue-neutral. One of the new experiences, indeed, the reality all Members face is that when measures are introduced that incur a cost they must also provide from where that cost will come. That is how local authorities function. When I chaired our budget meeting last year one of the standing orders of the council was such that if a member stood up with a proposal as to how we would spend money he or she had to marry it with the method of saving the money concerned. We have not heard that plan in the Chamber today, particularly not from Fianna Fáil, all of whose members focused on where money would come from and on their concerns and criticisms regarding the levy on the pension industry. There was not one suggestion from Fianna Fáil as to what savings and incentives could be put in place to get our people back to work.

We need to get a sense of creativity, determination and of leading the people and this is coming from the Government. In criticising, the Opposition, particularly those parties that regard themselves as serious, will have to state what they would do.

See this speech in context