Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister for Finance, the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Brian Hayes, and their officials for the work they have done on this Bill. This has been my first opportunity to deal with a Finance Bill as Opposition spokesperson.

We have been debating the budget since it was announced in the first week of December but it is now time to get on with it. We have our political differences but the country has a good chance of meeting its fiscal targets for 2012 without further adjustment. While I sincerely hope that will be the case, it is more important to measure how our people are doing and how our domestic economy is performing. Given the weak start made in retail sales and other measures, I am concerned about the performance of the domestic economy in 2012. Many of the measures contained in the Bill are designed to support the export industry, including the foreign earnings deduction and the SARP proposal, but this is a challenging time for our people. I hope the Bill will give hope to the Irish people, help to make inroads into the unacceptable unemployment situation and, ultimately, bring about economic recovery. We will continue to engage positively with individual aspects of that recovery and bring forward our own proposals on an ongoing basis.

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