Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This budget and Estimates process sets out to deliver on this Government's promise to the Irish people at the last general election to fulfil our commitments under the troika programme foisted on the Irish people by the previous Government and to restore Ireland's economic sovereignty. In pursuit of this goal, the two Government parties agreed a strategy for this budget and the Estimates. It involves reducing the tax and spending consolidation from the published €3.1 billion to €2.5 billion, targeting a general government deficit of 4.8% for 2014 and in the process, achieving a primary balance. This strategy seeks to reassure international investors that we are committed to reducing our deficit to below 3% of GDP by 2015 as we work to exit the troika programme. It seeks to put us on a path to long-term debt sustainability and ease the burden on future generations. It seeks to encourage growth in the domestic economy by targeting a consolidation no greater than is necessary to achieve our fiscal goals and by investing for future economic growth. Equally importantly, it seeks to minimise the impact of austerity on the Irish people.

Economic Policy

This is the last of our budgets under the fiscal constraints of the troika programme. We have made good on our commitments to the international community that has supported us in recent years, and we do not underestimate this effort; it is a testament to the courage and fortitude of the Irish people. "No austerity" is the catch-cry of those that have argued that there were alternative strategies available to this Government. Nobody is ideologically committed to austerity but austerity is what is left after Fianna Fáil in government drove the economy into the ground and led us beholden, like the famine victims of old, to seek relief outside this country.

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