Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I have some sympathy with the point raised by Senator Fitzgerald. If we are not going to deal with this rationally, there will be no gain to be made for this country by arguing in this House over whose fault it is. We need to have clear information. I have tried to see both sides of this argument. We need to know the current economic indicators, the current tax take. We need to know the scale of the problem so that we can come to terms with it. We need to then know how the solutions are to be found. We need to consider issues such as the national development plan and how we can build our way out of the recession or whatever we wish to call the current position. We need to have a clear view and we need to understand the situation.

Broad brush strokes are no good and neither is blaming the other side. We need to be specific. It is all very well to talk about pay freezes, take-home pay and profits but we should also discuss the people at the bottom end of the scale, those on the minimum wage. There are issues to be dealt with. People either have the moral and political courage to deal with these issues or they have not. Politicians do not like taking unpopular decisions. Some of us have spent our lives selling unpopular decisions to the people who elected us and this can be done again. However, we cannot blame Libertas if we get this one wrong; it is a problem for us to deal with. We need to have the information put in front of us in a calm manner about the Government's view on where interest rates, inflation, unemployment figures, are going, and the Government's decisions on the possible options for dealing with the situation. This must be done and there is no other way to do it. The Deputy Leader has been studying these matters for the past five years and I trust him to come back with a proper response.

We are faced with a strike in the Bank of Ireland. This is another good example of how we never hear anything about industrial relations problems until a strike is threatened. A strike in the Bank of Ireland was narrowly avoided some years ago. The unions and management along with the various State support groups, the National Implementation Body and others, became involved and came to a conclusion. The subsequent deal cut 2,100 jobs, saved the bank €147 million a year and gave the workers in the Bank of Ireland a 6% share pay-out each year. This deal was hard won for the staff.

The bank has now decided, without any consultation, to reduce the 6% share payment to 3%. This is unacceptable and it is no way to run a business. Bank of Ireland has plenty to answer for in other spheres of its activities. It is a company making a €1.7 billion profit per year and the amount in question is less than 1% of that total annual profit. These people are walking all over their employees and also their shareholders and others. The bank has a lot to answer for. The greed of the Bank of Ireland senior management, of the court of the Bank of Ireland, as it pompously calls it, is unacceptable.