Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)

As Deputy Martin outlined, there is a degree of irony or hypocrisy in the context of what was stated in recent times with regard to the difficulties the property sector brought about in this economy. A very simplistic argument was proffered for a very long time when Government members were on this side of the House. Now they realise it is important to have a stimulus to ensure there is activity in the commercial and residential property sector.

One of the key issues facing the economy is job creation. The Minister made great strides in promoting the idea that this was a jobs budget but at the very heart of a modern economy is the need to have access to credit. There are no proposals that have a definitive way of ensuring the release of credit into the broader economy. Everybody who represents small and medium-sized businesses and everybody who works in the system knows it is completely blocked and that there has been no freeing up of credit. Some of the surveys carried out would show that the opposite is the case, that there is now a tightening of credit again. All these incentives seek to stimulate a section of the economy, but it cannot move until there is an opening and freeing up of credit.

It is a positive step to introduce a stimulus in this area but until such time as genuine efforts - as opposed to the aspirational measures laid out in the context of the pillar banks, as they are now called, in terms of providing lending - are made, nothing will happen. That is the single biggest failure at the heart of this budget document, the failure to bring forward commitments to ensure that credit is made available to small and medium-sized businesses and potential mortgage holders.

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