Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This Finance Bill comes after a long series of Finance Bills I have had the pleasure to speak on over the years. It gives statutory effect to this year's budget, which was drawn up and passed by the House against the backdrop of Brexit. The challenges envisaged in the budget will remain for some considerable time. The measures taken in the budget and which follow in the Finance Bill were prudent and well identified and had to be taken. While there may be issues outstanding that we have not seen or that have not emerged yet in terms of its impact on this country, the budget was the best that could be produced. It was not a giveaway budget, nor could it be. Similarly, the Finance Bill giving effect to those measures must be and is prudent. Obviously, the issue at present is Brexit.

We also have the issue of climate change, which is serious, and we are in a quandary there. We do not know as a society what we should do, according to all reports, or whether there will be salvation for us at the end of the day. I am of the view that there will be. As a country, we are still a going concern. The measures already put in place - the climate change Bill and associated measures and the measures taken in the Finance Bill - will ultimately bring about Ireland's compliance with the international targets set and agreed to, and that will be in our interest as a country. We must bear in mind that many people claim that, for example, the agriculture sector should be closed down because we cannot survive its impact on the environment and so on. I do not accept that at all. We can and should proceed in a balanced fashion, bringing along with us as a result the economy with all its trappings, the people and the administrators in society. There are those who say we in this House are those people. So far so good. A further explanation needs to be made as to how the general public can make its contribution to the challenges that lie ahead in respect of climate change. That is important and should be done as soon as possible and, as a result, we should have no qualms about our ability to tackle those challenges.

As for the economic position in general, it is no harm to reflect on how far we have come over recent years, the sacrifices that had to be made and the cost to society and to the people of this country. That should serve as a warning to us not to go down that road again, even though we hear calls all the time from many sectors of "let us have more", "give us more" and "we deserve it".

There are shades of the boom in that message that we deserve it. Of course, we all deserve it; we all deserve more and we should have more. However, the fact is that if we become reckless in handling our economy, there will be nothing left. If we have to revisit the events of the past ten to 15 years, it will not be so easy the next time. It is all fine for people to stand up in this House and say there were better ways, that we should not have had to pay anybody and that it should have been much easier. There is nothing easy. If a country goes to a bank and borrows money, and says a short time afterwards, "By the way, that money we borrowed from you, we think we should not have to pay it back", we would get very cold comfort by way of response from the lending institutions. It it were otherwise, then our whole system would collapse.

I believe this Finance Bill is a watershed. It dealt with the manifold issues right in the face of the storm. Brexit is still not finally settled and we do not know at what stage it will be finally settled; it may be six months or two or three years, but we do not know. The fact is we have managed to survive so far, albeit with considerable difficulty. It goes without saying we should acknowledge the contribution of all parties in the House to that unified approach in regard to Brexit, which was critical to the success or failure of the negotiations. If we had done otherwise and if we had gone in all directions, with everybody citing their own case and neglecting the national interest, that would have been a different story and there would have been a very high cost. To be fair to everybody, I acknowledge the support received from all sectors and all parties in the House, including the Independents. Hopefully, that will stand us in good stead as time goes on.

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