Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

I agree with Senator Donohoe that the retention of jobs is extremely important. Essentially, it is on this aspect that the discussions taking place between the Government and the social partners are focused. The decisions relating to the Estimates and this year's budget also centred on the retention of employment.

The Fine Gael motion contains a number of suggestions and proposals in respect of PRSI, freezing charges and reversing the recent VAT increase. The difficulty is that all of these would give rise to additional costs at a time when the Government is operating with an extremely large deficit. Their likely impact would have to be carefully examined.

The Government is engaged in developing a strategy to extricate us from the difficult position in which we find ourselves. I acknowledge the problem that has arisen in the context of the depreciation of sterling. The IFA and the IEA have put forward proposals which I have no doubt will be examined carefully in the partnership talks.

I must have been in a different church from Senator David Norris. I do not recall listening to the Book of Job but I quoted from a psalm yesterday — "Though wealth increase, set not your heart upon it".

The problem with abolishing rules and regulations for 12 months relates to conditions of employment. I do not believe we can simply scrap conditions of employment. We would very quickly create many problems for ourselves if we went down that road. There is a devolved small works scheme for small schools.