Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister to the House. When we discuss such a serious issue as our economy we need to be far more straightforward in what we state to the Irish people. The public finances have gone rapidly from boom to bust and we need to restore order to them.

The first thing that someone of the Minister's calibre should do, if he is taking the issue seriously, is to stop playing a charade with the social partners with regard to a 6% pay increase. Playing a charade that the 6% pay increase may still be paid gives the impression to the general public that the people in Dublin Castle are completely disconnected from, and not paying attention to, what is happening. On one level, that makes the Minister appear incompetent but, on another, it appears he is out of touch with what is happening.

The Minister is acutely aware of the financial tsunami that will hit this country next year in regard to the economy and we should be talking about the crisis in those terms. We should not spook people too much but leave them in no doubt about what is facing us next year.

When people compare what happened in Dublin Castle yesterday when the Minister announced the framework policy document with the stark results in the ESRI report in terms of what will happen next year, it makes them believe the Minister is disconnected. The ESRI has indicated that by the time these Houses sit again at the end of January there will be thousands of people on the live register and the economy will be showing signs of entering an even more serious recession than the one we know we are in now. We need to talk seriously about what is going on.

The social partners, whether it is Jack O'Connor, David Begg or Tom Parlon, are all the same in the sense that they represent vested interests. The Minister's role is to represent the public and it might not be wise of him to refer frequently to the social partners in terms of every decision he is making. They are part of that process but the most important part of it is what the Minister is supposed to do, which is represent the general public. The Minister should be talking about the reforms he is prepared to make in the public service next year and in subsequent years and point out to the people in a genuine way the differences he would like to see happen, not in broad terms but in real terms.

I have highlighted in this House the difference between the way the National Health Service operates in Northern Ireland and the way the Health Service Executive runs in the Republic of Ireland. The NHS spends approximately £2,000 for every man, woman and child in the United Kingdom. We are spending €3,000 for every man, woman and child in the Republic of Ireland.

The NHS pushed for the provision of colonoscopies to diagnose bowel cancer within six weeks and they have achieved that target. From working as a general practitioner, I am aware one would not get a colonoscopy in this country within six months.

Hospital consultants in Northern Ireland are paid significantly less than €100,000 for all grades, yet we are talking about giving academic grade consultants here €300,000. I am using those figures because it helps to highlight the contrast when people talk about competitiveness, transparency and reform of the public sector. The NHS is able to provide much more in terms of services to its citizens than the HSE can provide to its citizens here. In other words, the NHS is getting more for less but we are getting less for more. That is the problem we have failed to deal with, but I do not hear that from the social partners or from Government.

We must stop the charade about a 6% pay cut. It should be off the table. We will not talk about pay cuts yet — the ESRI took a hard line on that — but we must talk about serious reforms not just in the health care sector but throughout the public sector. That is what we need. We must begin talking as if we believe in something.

The Minister was in Dublin Castle yesterday, but he should stay out of Dublin Castle, especially as we are coming up to the 90th anniversary of the first Dáil, because it never had a good name for the people of Ireland. Everything should be brought back to the Oireachtas.