Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The benchmark against which the Government will be measured is what it committed to prior to the general election. It will also be benchmarked against three big issues, namely, debt, job creation and reform. The very fact that a figure of €8.1 billion is included in the budget to service the national debt is testament to the failure to negotiate a reduction or writing-off of some of the debt we should never have been responsible for assuming. Let me put this in context. When the Maastricht treaty was negotiated - I believe Mr. Albert Reynolds was Taoiseach at the time - the negotiators came back with £7.2 billion that was to transform the country. It was to be paid over five years. We are paying €8.1 billion next year in interest alone on the national debt. This obviously reduces the prospects for stimulating the economy and creating jobs. We have no strategic investment bank and the five point plan seems to have disappeared.

With regard to reform, there was an expectation that the political and public service systems would be radically reformed. I acknowledge that reform takes time, but under the Government, we have seen a series of box ticking exercises and minor changes that just tinker at the edges. It is not what the people bought into. If the Government is to continue what it is doing and does not do what is was elected to do, it should go.

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