Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I did not know the Deputy was advertising for the Higgins grind school. I have referred to these matters. I met a number of the Tara miners some time ago in Navan. We were following through on a number of specific issues they raised. The cost of the temporary levy could well be absorbed by the pensions industry.

No decisions have been made on the detail of any cuts to social welfare. Clearly, there will have to be savings in social welfare. Unless there is a social welfare structure that encourages employment measures and encourages people to go and want to go to work, there will not be the kind of society about which the Deputy talks and which we all want to see. I refer to one in which people have the opportunity to have employment in their own area, if that is what they wish.

What the Deputy is talking about is speculative in the sense that the Government has not signed off on this. The programme for Government, about which the Deputy speaks, was agreed between both parties, namely, the Fine Gael Party and the Labour Party, and it was debated in this House and passed overwhelmingly by the representatives of the people who sent us here to deliver on that mandate.

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