Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)

Irrespective of which side of the House one is on, it is clear no progress will be made in the challenges we face with the banking and deficit crises unless we concentrate on economic growth and jobs. It is all about jobs, which every Member accepts irrespective of their perspective. It is not enough, however, to make rhetorical calls for jobs. The Government has a responsibility to intervene, albeit in a measured and prudent but ambitious way, to bring jobs back to the economy. That is why I support the Finance (No. 2) Bill's measures.

Yesterday, I found it strange that Deputy Pearse Doherty complained the Bill was too short, as if the shortness of a Bill was something to criticise. The legislation contains the measures required to be enacted arising from the jobs initiative. Given the constraints on Government and the difficulties we face, the jobs initiative is an imaginative proposal introduced early in the life of this Government. It sets out a number of areas in which the Government is in a position to intervene. A considerable element of it relates to the tax code, VAT reductions for a particular period in particular sectors, the treatment of research and development and the air travel tax. Each of these measures has been welcomed. I do not believe I heard anyone quibble during the course of this debate with any of those individual measures. I may be wrong but the only quibble I heard was that the measures on research and development did not perhaps go far enough.

Each of the measures which the Government intends to introduce, all of which have considerable merit, must be funded somehow. It is unfair of Deputy Finian McGrath and some Fianna Fáil Members to acknowledge that these are interesting measures, to state that they support any measure that will create jobs and to then disappear from the argument when the Government puts forward a proposal on how such measures are to be funded. The Government must fund them. It is dishonest and disingenuous for people to say they support one part of the proposal and not the other. In this instance, we cannot have one without the other. No one is ecstatic or delighted at the notion of a pension levy: no one could be. However, we must balance the positive opportunities that this revenue will provide for Government to implement these measures of which people are so supportive.

It is incumbent on those people who say they welcome the first three parts of the Bill but not the final part to tell us from where funding could be alternatively obtained given the overriding requirement for budget neutrality in what the Government does. Many people will be affected by the pension levy. To avoid conflict, I should say at this point that I too will be affected by it. Many people who put together pension funds will be uncomfortable and unhappy that the Government is reaching in and taking away some of their money. This is an equitable proposition. What the Government proposes to do is, essentially, engage in a temporary claw-back of the tax relief extended to people fortunate enough, as I and others have been, to put aside money for a pension. Why should the Government not do that? I understand Deputy Mitchell's point on people's expectations in regard to their pensions. People's expectations of many things have been undermined in the past two or three years.

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