Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

I am not convinced of the Minister of State's argument that the social partners are seeking to hold on to jobs. They appear to want to hold on to pay at a time when we all realise we must take our medicine as a consequence of the Government's mismanagement of the public finances. While I accept the economy operates in the global context and global events have impacted on the banking crisis, the Government must take responsibility for what it has done nationally. It would serve it well to issue an apology to the people.

I will focus on some proposals for what could be done. My colleagues alluded to taxation policy. Having been an employer for five years, I support the proposal to remove employers' PRSI, a penal tax, for additional staff. We should incentivise rather than penalise employers. As the generators and multipliers in the community, let us celebrate and appreciate them, especially at this time.

On VAT rates, the Government must watch and follow emerging patterns in the population. At present, people are moving to the North. The other day, a father of a family said to me: "How dare the Government tell me not to go to the North when I have had only six weeks' work since last August?" Today, we read in newspaper reports that shoppers in the South pay 51% more for non-grocery goods such as clothing, homeware and electrical goods. We will lose employment because retailers here will be unable to remain open.

We must tax from the top down, which means taxing the tax exiles. It is also time that high earning artists who earn in excess of hundreds of thousands of euro, for example, Bono and Cecilia Ahern, paid their dues.

The banks have much to answer for and it is time we gave them a mandate to extend credit lines to perfectly sound businesses which need credit to pay wages. These businesses are letting people go because they cannot pay wages owing to a lack of credit rather than work. Last week, we heard Deputy Richard Bruton relate a number of stories in Galway.