Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

History is a very interesting and intriguing science and, when it suits, this Government has a particularly peculiar relationship with history. Turning to more recent history, the last time we saw such an outbreak of self-congratulations and self-praise, it was followed by massive instability in the Government. It tripped over its own hubris on that occasion. I do not wish the same thing to happen to the Government this time, but it should heed the warning of what went before.

Earlier this evening, as I walked into the Chamber, I heard the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, accusing a previous Fianna Fáil-led Government, in 2002, of short-termism on an excessive scale. This was the Minister who, as an Opposition Deputy, went before the people on the basis of an undertaking to recoup the losses of Eircom shareholders and give taxi drivers in Dublin compensation for the consequences of deregulation. She went on to say that a Fianna Fáil-led Government showed the same excessive short-termism in 2007. I remind the Minister of the Mullingar accord, under which Fine Gael and the Labour Party fought to outdo each other, with the leaders of those parties making all sorts of promises about what they would do if elected. Even as late as budget 2008, which was delivered in this Chamber in December 2007, the response of the then Leader of the Opposition and now Taoiseach was to describe the former Minister for Finance, Brian Cowen, as Scrooge-like because he did not give away enough. This does not fit with the competency and good sense we are supposed to understand was the hallmark of the Opposition at the time.

The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, then came into the Chamber and asked us to reflect on the journey on which the country and the Government have come. He repeated the claim - in reality it is not a claim but a word we are not allowed to use in this Chamber, beginning with "l" and ending with "e" - to the effect that there was no funding in place when the Government came into office in 2011, it did not know how it was going to pay the bills and all the new Ministers went grey overnight from the stress. The first point to make is that 60% of the adjustment that had to be done to get us to where we are today was done before this Government came into office. Moreover, the two parties now seeking the whole credit for that adjustment, opposed it in every single cent when they were on this side of the House. Second, I ask the Government to reflect on history and the fact there was an international agreement in place which guaranteed the funding it needed to run the country for three years. This Administration took that agreement and ran with it, which was the lead-in to the previous episode of self-congratulation to which I referred at the start of my contribution.

History is an important aspect of life in this country and for each and every one of us, and it should not be misconstrued to provide political campaign tales. We should seek to learn from history. The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, asked what my party has learned from the events of recent years. The answer is that we have learned a great deal, because we are willing to learn from mistakes that were made and, as a result, we can say we have a right to contest the next election. One of the things we are doing which the Government is shying away from is offering our support for an independent costing of election manifestos by the Fiscal Advisory Council. That council was brought forward by the Taoiseach as representing a major breakthrough in democracy, but it has turned into the type of expensive ornament one receives as a wedding gift, puts in the corner and dusts every so often. One ignores it, basically. The Fiscal Advisory Council can play a role in ensuring we learn from past mistakes by measuring manifestos and giving its views on them.

That said, the process of delivering and debating a spring economic statement is welcome because it means we can at least have a debate in the coming months, ahead of the budget, on the economic priorities for this State. We all, Government and Opposition Members alike, will have to put our cards on the table in terms of those plans. As such, the notion of a discussion around the economy within known parameters is to be welcomed.

The word "spring" suggests a time of renewal and making changes, but there is very little renewal in place for many people in our society. Those people will have looked to yesterday's roadmap, which we are given to understand is a five-year plan, for some type of inspiration, but they will not have found any. They especially will not have seen cause for hope if they are variable-rate mortgage holders who were also looking to the AGMs of Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks and the statement by Ulster Bank, the message from which was that the interest rates they are paying will not be reduced. The banks cannot reduce them because the message from the Government yesterday was that its intention is to fatten those institutions, sell them and use the money to get re-elected. To fatten the banks, the Government needs to ensure variable-rate mortgage holders continue to get ripped off.

Ulster Bank SME customers, whose loans have been sold out from under them, will have looked to see whether there was a suggestion yesterday of urgency around the amendments to the credit guarantee scheme that would allow them to re-finance their loan. There was no mention of it, however, even though that process is happening around the country.

Elanco workers in Sligo, 70 of whom are to be laid off, will have looked to see whether there is a change of policy that will ensure replacement jobs for them. They will have seen announcements in Waterford but very few in the north west. Instead of regional action plans, these people want to see specific targets laid down so that in cases like this, where there is a talented workforce, employees will be assured that they can remain on the west coast, have some type of career and continue to rear their families. Unfortunately, the Elanco workers will have seen no evidence of that.

We need to see specifics or some type of measurement that will allows us to make comparisons, like any business would do, and see whether milestones in terms of employment creation are being met. Those milestones should relate to proper employment creation, not the type of thing where we have 130,000 part-time jobs with zero-hour contracts. We need to have a discussion about the fact that there are people in these buildings who are on contracts that are not fair. There has been no roadmap set out to show how these issues can be tackled.

There is no renewal here in the sense that a spring statement should signify. There is no sense of the Government showing people where it wants to be and where it sees this country going. It is a list of macroeconomic targets which everybody has heard about but with which not everybody can identify. It is a list of big figures and big terms that people want to see meaning something to their families, their pay packets and their local schools and hospitals. People do not see that and they will not see it. Moreover, if they do see it in the coming months, they will dismiss it as some sort of electioneering.

I wonder whether the reference by the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, to short-termism on an excessive scale encompasses the range of promises that have been leaked in recent weeks to the various newspapers that are friendly to the Government regarding public service pay rises, cuts in the universal social charge and spending increases here, there and everywhere. We have heard about Ministers going around the country and giving all types of promises and the Taoiseach going on local radio announcing road schemes. Is that short-termism on an excessive scale or is it Government investment?

In the coming months we will not see promises to compensate Eircom shareholders - Deputy Bernard Durkan got a few votes out of that - or look after taxi drivers. Instead we will be presented with the Government's plan for renewal. We know exactly what yesterday was about and what it was intended to do, namely, to launch the starting gun on Fine Gael's re-election campaign, with the hope that it might drag the Labour Party with it over the line. The measurement of that will be what happens in the coming weeks. What will come out of the public sector pay talks? Will we have Fine Gael Ministers demanding more productivity, in an effort to appeal to its core vote, while ignoring the changes in rostering within the Garda Síochána and in schools and hospitals throughout the country? Or will we have genuine engagement on public sector reform and evidence of a genuine respect for public sector workers? Will we have a debate about the health service which acknowledges that waiting lists are gone beyond control and gives consideration to reinstating the National Treatment Purchase Fund? To be getting telephone calls every day at the end of April about patients on trolleys is extraordinary. I have not witnessed that before.

Rural communities are being abandoned as they cannot get a general practitioner to take up a post because the HSE will not pay the rural practice allowance. The HSE has different rules for different areas of the country when it comes to the rural practice allowance. One would imagine that the same rules would apply in respect of it but they do not. Furthermore, when the HSE grants the allowance it pays it so late that many GPs cannot get paid and in some instances because of that they will not take up the position. That is the type of issue to which we need specifics and a response and not some sort of speech to rally the troops to send them on the road and hope as many of them as possible can get over the front, survive and get back here. That is what yesterday's exercise was about, nothing more, nothing less.

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