Larry Butler (Fianna Fail)

We have seen global turmoil in the world economy and markets in recent days. A couple of weeks ago we thought it was beginning to sort itself out. When the American Government could not pass a budget to deal with the crisis in America, that put a lot of pressure on the European and Irish economies. Our economy has huge inward investment from America and we depend substantially on that. When America gets a cold, we get pneumonia.

It is important that we consider why we took the decision we did. It was important to protect the ordinary small investor and person who had money on deposit in the banks. We also had to support small businesses in the banking service. All those businesses employ many people and if the credit situation were allowed to get worse we would find ourselves with huge unemployment queues at the dole office. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan and his team took the right decision, and the right decision was taken for the guarantee. We have now created a template for the rest of the European Union to follow.

We did not go down the route of nationalisation. Nationalisation would not have been the answer. We have given the full support of the Irish Government to guarantee the banking situation in this country. We have to examine at a commercial level the guarantee we have given, and how banks will pay for that guarantee. I agree with some of the criticism here; they have not got all the answers. I did not hear anybody coming up with solutions. We can all play the blame game but that will not solve the problem. We need people who are thinking outside the box, who have solutions. The Government has taken action and we did not have to go to Joe Duffy's "Liveline" to ask permission.

We are elected to govern and lead, and that is what we are doing. The solutions we have found support the banking system, which we will need to ensure we get out of our recession. Without a strong banking system we would not have support to ride out a recession. We need to stimulate the economy. How are we going to do that? We have an opportunity to do that in the forthcoming budget. Small businesses are the backbone of this country and they must be encouraged. People who employ 50 people or more must be given something in this budget. We need to produce new skills. The skills we have now may not be relevant for the 21st century. We need to develop the new green industry, which we have taken on board as part of our Government agreement. The green issues are very important and there can be huge development and job creation in that area. We must upgrade our housing and retrofit. A €9 billion development programme could happen. The Labour Party has mentioned this and I agree with it because I raised the matter here about three months ago as part of support for the building industry. We relied far too much on the housing industry, which was building more than 90,000 houses a year, which could not be sustained. This is a sustainable programme under which we could reduce our oil and gas imports, for which we pay dearly. If we do not have properly insulated, double-glazed and retrofitted houses, we are letting the energy out through the roof. It is as simple as that and it costs us money.

The budget needs to address the reasons for the recession and the solutions must ensure we have people to take on the jobs when they are created. I concur with the Minister that this is a time for housekeeping and that difficult decisions must be taken in the budget. I believe people are willing to accept such decisions. We will work to ensure the budget is fair and the elderly and less well-off do not suffer.