Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

The Minister of State's speech was not very different from the one he delivered in this House prior to its adjournment for the summer. Yesterday, the Irish Stock Exchange crashed by more than 10%, an unprecedented collapse in its value. It is time the Government awoke to a crisis which is partly of its own making. Exchequer figures will be out by more than 10% compared with the previous budget, and we are discussing figures involving billions of euro rather than thousands or millions. The Government got its predictions completely wrong and it will have to do something about it.

The current buzzword in the financial sector is "toxicity", a condition which has crept into the Government. Ireland has the misfortune to have its own toxic trio, namely, the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, and the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Coughlan, all of whom are out of their depth in terms of their responsibility for economic policy. They are contributing to the toxicity of the economy through their poor and slow judgment. The people will soon get sick and tired of this behaviour.

Why does the Government not acknowledge the unbelievable amount of bad debt that has arisen? Fianna Fáil, which has been in power for the past ten years, the banks and the property developers lulled themselves into this financial crisis. Irish bank deposits are safe for now but the crisis is not over. Developers across this city paid between €200 million and €800 million for land which in some cases is now only worth half that amount. Who is taking up the slack for this money which has to be written off on property?