Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

That is ridiculous talk. The Minister has given people no hope. His budget was ridiculous to begin with. It did nothing to deal with the problems. The Government is U-turning so much that the budget has lost credibility. The Minister's budget does not deal with the circumstances to be faced in 2009. He even acknowledges that the problems are bigger. I will give him credit for the fact that he acknowledges in his opening contribution that there are domestic as well as global problems. The Minister's budget for 2009 does not deal with the extent of those problems. We are not knocking the economy when we say matters will be far more difficult next year. That is the reality of which everyone is aware. There are people who are telling us that they will be put on a three-day week after Christmas. Small businesses are telling us they have no work for next year. Instead of their order books being full, they are almost empty.

These are the concerns in the economy and I believe the position will be worse next year. The Minister has seen it in his tax returns. Not only has tax revenue gone down, those who have prepaid their taxes for next year expect business returns to be much lower. This year the Revenue Commissioners are paying taxes back to people because their preliminary tax returns from last year were higher than what they would have expected to pay this year due to the reduction in the economy. It is expected to get worse next year.

We are not knocking the economy, criticising the public service or against the Lisbon treaty and the European agenda, but when Ministers, who think they are regal rulers of the country, blandly talk down to us about what is happening with the treaty, it raises our ire.

We are willing to have an open and good discussion about what is happening to the economy. The Minister should let us know what he feels about the national pay agreement. Should it be postponed indefinitely until the economy turns around? He should be informing us of what he can do for small and medium-sized businesses now that the banks are safe. The banks will not lend to small and medium-sized businesses so the focus must be more on business. Should we introduce some scheme to directly finance business? Should the Minister for Finance pay their commercial rates, for example?

Dramatic action needs to be taken to help small and medium-sized businesses to keep people working. There is no point in giving extra funding to FÁS to train apprentices when they are being laid off and there is no work even for those who are qualified. It must be treated as the crisis it is. That is all this side of the House is asking. When the Minister replies, we want him to discuss the national pay agreement, private sector pensions, which have been decimated, moving the focus from the banks to private enterprise and the Lisbon treaty.

Much of the budget was focused on issues such as the medical card scheme, the cervical vaccine programme and substitute teachers. All these issues have been waylaid. There is no need for me to go back over them. The economy will face substantial issues until 2011. Unless we are realistic in how we speak about them, we will have a bigger problem next year. Those are the issues I want the Minister for Finance to address in his reply.