Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

The budget shows how misguided or misleading the Government was at the previous election, because our expectations are not being fulfilled. We were told the good times, which date back a decade, would continue as long as Fianna Fáil was back into power. Fianna Fáil was voted back into Government, but we have gone from a surplus of €3 billion in the previous budget to an expected deficit of €2 billion at the end of next year. That is a serious dent to anybody's credibility in terms of prudent financial management of the economy. It is evident the Government has utterly failed in what it was supposed to do in terms of balancing the budget and getting its figures right.

The economy appears to be okay in the sense that income tax receipts are up, which could mean we are taxing people too much. As everybody knows, the tax receipts showed more people paid the higher rate of tax than the standard rate. Taking the European Union as a whole, it is unusual that the majority of people are paying income tax at the higher rate. Corporate tax receipts are also down which does not bode well for the future if something happens to the economy. One can well ask whether the Government knows what is going on.

The big story of the economy is the collapse in stamp duty receipts which has resulted from the slowdown of construction industry activity. The relatively small adjustment in our economy has resulted in Government finances being completely thrown off predictions in the space of six to nine months. This is an indication that Fianna Fáil's mismanagement of the economy is slowly strangling the Celtic tiger. In some respects it appears that Fianna Fáil and its Government partners did not manage the economy well in recent years and that this was covered up due to the large receipts from income tax, VAT and corporate tax. As a result of Government mismanagement, the underlying problems were not addressed. That does not bode well for the coming years. Now that the Government's poor financial management of the economy has been exposed, we are in for a harsh few years.

The economic downturn cannot all be blamed on the global situation. The biggest story, however, is the Government's mismanagement of the economy and the fact that fundamentals were not dealt with in the past years. We expected more of that from this budget. It is easy to talk about the way money will be spent, especially when the Minister is borrowing money again to spend, but very little has been said about accountability, reform and the way taxpayers' money should be spent, priorities expressed on this side of the House for a number of years. The Government refused to do anything about that in recent years and we are now paying the price.

Regarding the major emphasis on the national development plan, the Government should clearly state what it intends to do in the national development plan. It should not say it intends to spend €1 billion here or €900 million there or that it will allocate €13 million for the development of wave power. Those are the only areas we can identify, the small money, so to speak. We want to know where the big money is being spent and the Minister of State should ask the Minister what is going on in that regard.