Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

On the basis of what is being discussed here, the Minister should consider this measure. For example, the ESRI report from yesterday states that it sees overall consumer prices falling next year for the first time since 1946. We actually have the wrong budget. With all the increases we have been talking about, we are doing everything to make sure this happens. There has been a debate in this House for the last number of weeks. I was criticised for saying it was wrong to have a 2.5% pay increase for ourselves in September and then preside over a harsh budget in October, yet we are still talking about pay increases next August. Other aspects of the ESRI report will bear this out also. We are creating a major disjunction between the public and private sectors — the same disjunction that existed a couple of years ago which we tried to rectify with benchmarking, although we did not follow through by achieving reform. We have passed the wrong budget. This is only compounding the problem we are talking about. The Government should seriously consider this issue before the events of 1946 are repeated.