Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I have little enough time. I welcome the decision to put on hold and review the disability measures. Although we must save money, those with a disability already have enough to contend with and matters would need to get much worse before we went to them for money. The services and cash payments are equally important to them. As occurred last year, will the Minister direct the HSE to ring-fence disability spending so that people with disabilities will not bear the full brunt of the cuts?

Given that the budget's core function was to cut €3.8 billion, no one could have had high expectations. By definition, such a budget was going to be almost completely bad news. Our commitment to the public was to get public finances back on track so that we might regain our sovereignty and grow the economy out of this hole by protecting jobs as much as possible and by creating new ones. The budget achieved this commitment.

Even if people fully appreciate the overall need to save €3.8 billion, it is understandable and inevitable that there is resentment towards the details. This is the fifth austerity budget with which people have had to contend. Many people have been hit several times and on different fronts. Apart from Government-induced hits, people have suffered a loss of personal wealth, jobs and expectations.

While the budget cannot be regarded as being benign, it succeeds in achieving the required savings, clearly prioritises jobs and effects savings by introducing long overdue reforms of practices that were inappropriate, even in the good times, and have become untenable in the current climate. For example, the budget reduces the six-day week for unemployment purposes. During the debate on the jobs initiative, I raised this matter as a constraint on employment. Small wonder that this practice was abused. How many of us would not love to work for three days and be paid for six? One would be mad not to accept an offer like that. The reform is essential as this practice has been a disincentive to employers to take on three-day workers.

Another practice is the double payment to lone parents on community employment, CE, schemes. While this was meant to act as an incentive to move into employment, the lone parents in question were serially employed in CE schemes, thereby defeating the schemes' purpose. Although they acquired a range of skills, they could not be placed in employment because any job they got would pay less than two social welfare payments plus the payment they received for their children. As harsh as these reforms may be, they are essential to our effort to get spending under control and to reform the system.

In recent weeks, there has been increasing speculation about the sustainability of the Croke Park agreement. Even if the agreement is desirable, sustaining it will be difficult. One must ask whether restricting the number of nurses, teachers and gardaí in order to leave the salaries of those who are still in employment untouched is fair to those who cannot get work as a result or to those who need the services in question. However, the real question is whether we can afford the agreement. It is widely accepted that linking pensions to current salaries was beyond the wildest dreams of the private sector even in the best of times. That link is increasingly unaffordable and difficult to justify. In replies to two parliamentary questions this week, I learned that the income taxes paid by the public sector barely cover the sector's pensions bill, €2.8 billion and €2.7 billion, respectively. I was shocked by this incredible statistic. If these are this year's figures, what will they be next year when there are fewer people working in the public service and more retirees? This significant drain on their taxes cannot be sustained.

The private sector's taxes cannot fund the entire cost of all public services, nor can we continue to ask it to do so. I am not saying that the Croke Park agreement can or should be torn up, as we need industrial peace and flexibility if we are to enact vital reforms. However, we will need to renegotiate the deal, not because we want to but because it is a deal that we cannot afford to keep. The bargain was made in different times and we now realise it cannot be kept.

The transfer of responsibility for redundancy payments to employers has been discussed. When small and medium-sized employers shed staff, it is because they are in trouble. It is not right that they cannot plead inability to pay unless they are bankrupt. People should be able to make arrangements to try to save their businesses, even if it means sacrificing the jobs of the few to save the jobs of the many. People should be able to plead an inability to pay at a point short of bankruptcy. Will the Minister of State consider introducing a measure to this effect in tandem with the one that passes responsibility to the employer, particularly in terms of the small and medium-sized businesses that will bear the brunt of the latter measure? We are not concerned with the Dells and so on, but with the small businesses that we hope will be the backbone of future growth.

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