Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I wish to share my time with Senator Ivana Bacik. Each year in this debate I usually act as a school teacher examining the pupil's examination results and say: "Could do better", but I will not do that today. Today I will regard the Minister as a grocer giving bad news to his customers and staff and saying: "We are having a tough time and we will have to make some tough decisions." That grocer might say there is bad news but if it is given with clarity and honesty, it will be accepted. Did the Minister do that? I believe he made a valiant effort to do so but he did not paint a realistic picture of how he sees the challenge. He was far too optimistic in his forecasts. The figures for next year will be worse than he forecasts. The need to cut current spending is essential. The forecast is an increase of 7% but that is too much to take. He did not do what was needed and what the country was willing to take, that is, a cut in current expenditure.

That grocer would explain to his audience that he had to tackle costs. The cost of the public service in Ireland is excessive yet when the Minister referred to the Health Service Executive redundancy scheme, he said that discussions were under way on the development of such a scheme. That was a weak move at a time when we have such high expenditure. Public sector pay and pensions equal 50% of current spending. We did not give the people the opportunity to say they will accept the bad news.

Look at what happened in Cappoquin Chickens last week. That great company in County Waterford ran into difficulty. The new owners went to the workers and said they could not survive unless they took a reduction in pay. Almost everyone took the reduction in pay. The country was willing to accept something like that and the public service would have had to do so.

Look at the performance bonuses paid. As far as I can see from the figures published last week on performance bonuses paid to senior civil servants, almost everybody got one, although not the same amount. Performance bonuses are paid for exceptional work or work over and above what one is expected to do in one's normal duties. That is what we should have tackled yesterday.

That grocer would have done something daring and imaginative to encourage customers to stay. Who are our principal customers? I was delighted to hear the Minister say that he was bringing forward a number of measures to support jobs, encourage enterprise and enhance our productive capacity. Although the steps he took were welcome, they were mild and not very exciting.

If the Minister was running a shop and if he had a problem, he would ensure that while he was giving all the bad news, he would give the customers some good news about a special offer which would draw their attention to something about which they could do something. I did not see any sign of that or of holding out any hope to our customers. When the late Charles Haughey was Minister for Health in 1979, he had no money to do anything but he gave everybody a toothbrush. I was reminded of that yesterday by a 39 year old who said the one thing they remembered about Mr. Haughey was that toothbrush. It was not very much but he had the imagination to distract attention from the very limited budget he had. I did not see the Minister showing imagination.

In his debate with Senator Barack Obama a couple of weeks ago, Senator John McCain made a slip of the tongue. When referring to Senator Obama's wish to increase tax, he said Ireland increased the amount of money it took in when it reduced corporation tax to 11%. We do not have an 11% corporation tax rate but a 12.5% one. It was a slip-up on Senator John McCain's part. Would it not have been imaginative if we had said to our biggest customers, who are the foreign direct investors, that this is an opportunity to reduce the rate of tax? All the evidence suggests that each time we reduce the rate of tax, we take in more money. That is the type of imaginative step we could have taken. I am not criticising all the steps the Minister has taken but I would have preferred to have seen more imagination and more daring in this area.

I will comment on the one tax which I do not believe anyone else has. Foreign direct investment is important and I was delighted the Minister said that there is no question of the 12.5% corporation tax being increased but he has increased capital gains tax. There will be no capital gains for the next couple of years anyway but this will frighten those foreign direct investors. I would have preferred to have seen more imagination in this budget.