Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

More important now is for the Government representatives to begin speaking their minds in the same way we do, and this includes the Senators opposite. They must give up this idea of being Mighty Mouse in their constituencies and Mickey Mouse in Dublin. This has had a detrimental effect on our politics and democracy and is why we are in this type of scenario. We are playing politics with people's lives and it has been going on for too long.

To give some idea of how disjointed the situation is, I will give a simple example. Private health insurance contributions are tax deductible at only the standard rate of tax. If a person wants dental treatment for his or her children, it is deductible at the standard rate. When the Minister, Deputy Harney, was asked the reason for this, she said she wanted everybody to be treated equally and did not want those on better incomes to somehow have better access to medical and dental care on the basis of tax. Yet, in regard to pensions, if one pays at the higher rate of tax, one can deduct expenses at the higher rate. This seems to be a contradiction.

This issue is not being taken into account with regard to the level of overall savings. Ministers are everywhere saying they will save €2 billion. They will not save €2 billion because at least €300 million will be paid back in tax rebates to those making pension contributions. It is very difficult to support a Government that simply cannot get its figures right.

The Government needs to wake up to the seriousness of the situation. A contribution was made in the House this morning stating that we have not realised how serious the issue is. We have realised it. If America has the iPod, we are part of the i-pigs. We are one of five countries in Europe that is considered by international investors to have an extremely poor credit rating. This is the price we are paying. The public is being drip-fed announcements by Government — we are not going to nationalise, we are going to nationalise; things are bad, things are not so bad; we are not going to tax you, we are going to tax you. They have lost confidence in the Minister and at the same time the clouds of the wider global economic downturn are swirling around us. We understand this. Our situation is much worse than people perhaps acknowledge. The IMF pointed out that the economic downturn of 2% in some of the large economies is extremely serious yet the economic downturn in this country will be at least 5%.

If we are talking about moving forward, when we ask questions of Ministers, I would like them answered. Often when we ask questions in the House, they are not answered and we are not told what is happening. Much information is still not getting to these Houses in time. For example, I read a report on what will happen to taxes in the future. One of the concerns is that the tax take will be down during the course of 2009. The Department of Finance is not in a position to give us the different profiles for each of the tax categories.

I presume the reason for this is that the situation is difficult and unpredictable for the next couple of months. However, when that is the situation, there is an even greater need for Ministers to come to both Houses to give us as much information as they have, to let us know they do not know and to stop acting as if they do know. The Taoiseach, Deputy Brian Cowen, and the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, for the past five or six months have been acting like they are great fountains of knowledge who will protect this country, only for them to be exposed as emperors with no clothes a couple of months later, in some cases a few days later. This is only putting fear into people's minds. There is a need for the Government to be more open.

When the Government says we must make changes and become more competitive, what does it mean by competitiveness? In a contribution to this House two weeks ago, I pointed out in regard to the health service that consultants in Northern Ireland get paid a maximum of €100,000 whereas consultants on this side of the Border are being paid at least €180,000. The same goes for all other categories of workers. Is the health care system in Northern Ireland substantially worse than that in the Republic? In Northern Ireland, 10% of people feel the need to get private health insurance because they do not trust the public health care system whereas, in the South, 70% feel the need to get such insurance. Every individual north of the Border has free GP care but fewer than one third of the people on this side of the Border have this. This is one section of Government expenditure where costs, efficiency and delivery can be examined. We are completely out of kilter with what is happening just north of the Border, even before we begin making other international comparisons.

That is what competitiveness is all about. It is not the mumbo jumbo Ministers go on with and on which they publish documents. We have priced ourselves out of being a small, open, global economy and this is the price we are paying. We are still not prepared to accept that sort of language. This is the fourth or fifth time I have debated the economy in the House. If I studied the last four or five speeches from Ministers who have come to the House, there has not been much change. In fact, today's debate is probably the most substantial example of the Government actually doing something. It will actually impose a pension tax on public and civil servants, reducing services that are being provided for children and others across our economy.

It is the first time something tangible is being done but, even as it is being done, the Government figures are still all wrong. The Government gives a figure of €2 billion but I suspect that because it must introduce legislation and other changes, this will drag on and we will have no idea what will be saved this year.

The Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, said we have more or less reached the end of the line. He said we cannot change corporate tax, income tax or capital gains tax. He said we cannot do any more and he gave his reasons for this. However, if things do get worse, what is the next step for the Government? What if 400,000 people are unemployed in September and the situation is getting tighter? What is the next step or will that also be pulled out of the hat like a rabbit sometime in July, and will we live in denial until the very last minute? Is the Government planning to make changes to capital spending or income taxes?

If the members of the Government are talking about national government, partnership and consensus, why do they not share their thoughts with us? Are we simply to lead ourselves into another abyss in a few months without the Government telling us what is going on? Will the Government continue to lose the confidence of the people? A lack of knowledge brings fear, which is why people are panicking. They just do not know what is happening and do not get the sense that the Government knows what is happening.

There is time for the Government to come to the House to talk to us about what we will do next and potentially how bad the situation could get. The banks have fallen off the radar, as it were, in recent weeks but a further €15 billion or €20 billion at least may need to be invested. The Government has referred to a €2 billion saving, but that is not the case. The problem in the public finances amounts to €20 billion per year. We cannot get out of this problem by borrowing. Debt in Ireland, including private debt made up of mortgages, car loans and credit card loans, is in excess of gross national product. The people are already seriously in debt. The Government cannot afford to fall into serious debt in the coming years. That would bring us into the category of Iceland as a bankrupt state. We are not there, but delusional thinking such as we need only consider savings of €2 billion per year for everything to be fine will put us there. There is a need for the Government to give a clearer idea of its strategy in the coming years to stabilise the public finances. There is no point discussing something occurring in 2010 or 2012 and suggesting we need only make €2 billion savings this year, €3 billion in the following year and €4 billion the year after that. In each of those years we will borrow a minimum of €20 billion. There will be a shortfall of €50 billion at the end of that three-year period. If the economy contracts and does not improve in the coming years, then by 2011 it will not be in good enough shape to bring us out of recession.

We should consider a detailed national plan for the coming three years, not simply a framework or a policy document, to give some idea of the worst possible scenario and a plan for the next decade. That is how the Tallaght strategy worked and that is what Mr. Charles Haughey and Mr. Alan Dukes discussed. They did not simply discuss the matter over a couple of months and discuss Mickey Mouse figures, which is essentially what we are discussing now. They made some serious cuts at the time. Some people say we never recovered from the cuts made then because we did not transform and change the health services during the good times. We simply used benchmarking as a method of throwing money into the system. However, it was not very efficient.

Perhaps some of these matters might be addressed when the Minister is replying to the House, including the nature of the grand plan. The Opposition should not be expected to come up with it; that is not its role. We will produce some ideas. We have provided opinions and backed the Government with some of its suggestions. However, there is no leadership. We are all very much in tune and we wish to know what is taking place. It is not the job of ordinary men and women to pay attention to what is occurring. We are paid to do so. Perhaps many of those people are only now understanding the serious extent of the crisis.

We wish to hear more from the Government benches than we have heard to date. The Government must broadly indicate how it will proceed. We have heard very little about its proposals for the banks, which is a significant part of the issue. We do not know if reference has been made to stopping remuneration of senior bank officials. Between giving the State guarantee and nationalising Anglo Irish Bank, millions of euro was paid in bonuses to managers at Anglo Irish Bank, in which the Government had no say. There is a need for the Government to take control of such matters. These are not weekend wonders where large meetings take place and everyone stays up until 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. and then everything is forgotten. There is a need to explain what is being done and what will be done with the senior management of the bank and how they will be made accountable.

I listened to the car radio on the way to work and I heard one possibility which the Minister might consider. A person spoke of how he was tied into fixed rate mortgage repayments because he thought interest rates were increasing. In the meantime, interest rates have dropped significantly. When this person asked the bank if he could exit this arrangement, the bank indicated it would charge excessive amounts of money to do so.

Some years ago, I had a similar arrangement and I worked it out. The banks examine the difference between repayments now and if repayments were fixed, and that amount is charged over the course of the fixed term, whether it is two or three years. What role has the Minister in such a scenario? There is no point in suggesting writing to one's friendly bank manager. Such a letter goes straight to the headquarters and a pro forma letter is returned. In this case, the Minister could step in and, as the person bailing out the banks with €8 billion of taxpayers' money, ensure the banks make null and void all these fixed mortgage terms, if so requested by the customer. Some people may not wish to break such a contract, but that is an example of the leadership the Government should display for the people. The significant savings we are now making on mortgage repayments, owing to the drop in interest rates, have been swiped from us by the pension tax and other levies introduced by the Government. The Government could help those who have not benefited from the fall in interest rates because they are tied into fixed rate repayments. Perhaps it should say to the banks tomorrow morning that if customers wish to break such a contract, both sides should sign to that effect and the contract would then be null and void. The Government should show some leadership.