Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is a pleasure to be here. When this legislation started going through the House in 2008, Fianna Fáil was on this side of the House and we were on the Opposition side. The options were limited and we were going through a particularly scary period. Anyone who has heard me talk about where we have come from and where we are now will know I describe the last decade as the lost decade. It is not just the last decade. There were many difficulties for many people in that period. Some people emigrated but some people who were in the public service did not have the opportunity to emigrate. They had full-time, pensionable, permanent jobs and the FEMPI legislation had a severe impact on those people. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, has spoken about it. They got on with the job and have to be commended on that.

That lost decade was really difficult. How did that lost decade occur? It happened because our income collapsed. Our structures were based on income streams that were not consistent or sustainable. The one we all know best is stamp duty. It vanished overnight because the construction sector closed. We went from building 90,000 units to building fewer than 9,000. The stream of €8 billion from those units was gone in the space of 18 months, but our expenditure stream did not collapse. We still had public servants, civil servants and pensions to pay along with the social protection bill. We hear a lot from our friends on the left about wealth redistribution and how it does not occur in the State. In 2011, when we were at the lowest point of our returns from income tax - it was €11 billion - the social protection budget was €21 billion. That is the extent to which we were caught by income versus expenditure. We had a number of remarkable years in which there were huge differences in expenditure and income. We had to borrow. The national debt increased by about €140 billion in that period. Everybody focuses on the bank debt of about €30 billion. In 2007, the national debt was about €40 billion and the banks cost an additional €30 billion. That is €70 billion. Over that ten-year period, the national debt increased by €140 billion, which is an average of €14 billion a year. Its purpose was to keep the economy going. The average debt accumulated was €14 billion per annum for ten years but nobody wants to talk about that. Public servants and civil servants played their part by being responsible. They knew the difficulty we were in and they got on with it. That has to be said. Their payment was reduced. There was absolutely no option and they got on with it. They should be complimented because they worked harder, longer and better for less take-home pay.

I have just finished a period of flying around Europe to work on the bid for the European Banking Authority.

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Other countries are trying to make some of the changes that we have made in the past decade. Because we made those changes in the past decade, and could introduce a balanced and sustainable budget for 2018, we are now in a position to reverse the FEMPI cuts, to put that period behind us and move on, which is really remarkable.

We now move to the next stage which will be covered by the Public Service Stability Agreement 2018-2020. We have challenges ahead in that three-year period, but our structures are solid and secure, and have been tested. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, IFAC, today complimented the budget for 2018. Brexit is a major challenge. There is another challenge in the equity markets. If practically all the equity markets continue to make new records, a correction will come within the next two to three years. We are satisfied that we can afford to pay for it and therefore we will do it.

I wish to raise the issue of the FEMPI reversal in respect of the GPs' cuts. There is a real issue for the rural small practices. If it can possibly be looked at, we should look at it. I am not saying we can, but it is something we need to consider. We have issues in rural areas and this is something that will have an impact. We should consider it, if at all possible. As I said, our numbers are tight. We are looking at them and we need to consider these issues in the longer term to ensure we continue to have rural GP practices. I hear many people talking about the closure of rural Ireland; I absolutely dispute that, but this is an area we need to look at.

I remember having these conversations with Deputy Thomas Byrne when we were both in the other House. We moved from that space to where we are today. In this jurisdiction we are very slow to pay compliments to people who have stepped up. The Civil Service stepped up. Civil servants did not complain and go marching. They did not do what happened in other jurisdictions. As a result of that, I compliment all of them. I compliment the public service and Civil Service unions which were extremely responsible in the most difficult times. Even when other people in other unions were using words like "treacherous" and "treasonous", they were not treacherous or treasonous. Those in the public sector unions were patriotic.

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