David Norris (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House, with which he is not entirely unfamiliar, as his elevation is comparatively recent. He is also somebody who has considerable distinguished expertise from within the bureaucratic branch of government. I have no doubt that his view on this matter will be of interest to all Members of the House.

While I have mixed feelings about the motion, I will probably vote with Fine Gael Members, although my inclination is to remain neutral. The first number of sections are unarguable, as they are matters of fact. I refer to the increase in unemployment and the fact that this is among the first countries in Europe to enter officially into the category of recessionary economy. The blame game is also applied, which in a way is unfortunate because the situation is so critical that we have to pull together.

The Minister of State is a churchgoer; he is a member of the same Anglican denomination as I am. Perhaps he was in church on Sunday and heard the lesson from the Old Testament to which I referred on the Order of Business — Jonah, chapter three — in which Jonah was instructed by God to go to the citizens of Nineveh, not just to rebuke them but to tell them that their city would be flattened and razed to the ground because of their luxurious way of life, greed, selfishness and neglect of spiritual and ethical values. They were so terrified by the imminent catastrophe that they instantly — all of them, high and low, rich and poor, aristocrat and commoner — put on their sackcloth and ashes and made obeisance and acknowledged their fault. As a result, God withdrew the interdiction against them. There is a lesson for us. We have to put the country on a war footing. I am horrified when I hear people say, "We are not going to give up our wage increase." For God's sake, it is an obscenity when people are losing their jobs all over the country that anybody should start to say, "I am not giving up my wage increase." We should be thinking in terms of cuts, particularly those of us who, like myself and many of my colleagues in the House, are fortunate. I have paid my mortgage, which is partly a function of my age because I am nearly 65 years, and have very little in the way of debt. I even have a couple of thousand euro in prize bonds. We should be helping others out.