Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

My elderly patients tell me their pensions are being eroded by the cost of food and fuel. This is more than a blip for the economy. It is hurting people badly. The pensions of people who hope to retire in the next five to ten years are being eroded by the turbulence in the stock market. Much of this has been driven by the greed and frenzy in the Irish construction sector which was encouraged by the Government.

We are now facing rising inflation and unemployment and a deterioration in the national finances. I would be interested to learn how the Department of Finance arrived at its predictions of 2.5% growth next year and 4% in 2010 because many people believe the economy will not grow over the long term. The Government refuses to face up to that and is trying to soften the blow. Even some of the cutbacks the Minister announced, such as the €85 million reduction in nursing home payments, were never spent in the first place. There is no urgency on the part of the Government to make the cutbacks necessary to bring the national finances back into line. It has merely tinkered around the edges.

The Minister stated that health and education would not be affected but that is clearly not the case. Education will be affected if the VEC is required to reduce its staff complement. The HSE is to cut 1,000 administrative jobs but we are told that front line staff comprise 90% of HSE employees. That leaves a pool of 10,000 to 15,000 people from whom to take 1,000 redundancies. To whom does the Government refer in that regard? The reductions should have been made when the HSE was originally established rather than allowing the explosion in numbers that took place. The Government's proposals have been generic despite its claim to have considered them over the past few weeks. We need more detail.

The Government set up most of the quangos currently in existence but now we are told they are surplus to requirements. It is shameful that a huge amount of money has been wasted on them over the past decade instead of being put aside for this rainy day.

I ask for clarity on the issue of decentralisation. In my area, County Wexford, some buildings are currently under construction and negotiations are ongoing between Departments regarding who is expected to move first. The Minister needs to clearly state where this is to stop because if buildings are being constructed in anticipation of what happens in other parts of the region, the mess of decentralisation could become even bigger. We should not wait too long for the decentralisation implementation committee to report because we need to know what will happen. The process is already extremely slow but it could become an even bigger problem in the long term.

I would like more time to discuss what went wrong in regard to competitiveness. We also need time to discuss social partnership given its potential impact on Irish people over the next year.

I hope I will receive a response from the Minister in regard to decentralisation. I have focused on County Wexford but I am sure the rest of the country is facing similar issues. We need clear answers and an acknowledgement from the Government of its role in creating this problem.