Eugene Regan (Fine Gael)

There is a headline in The Irish Times today, "Irish recovery plan provokes harsh criticism from Brussels", the plan to restore its public finances and come within the 3% limit for Government deficits, which the Government submitted to Brussels. We have the highest public deficit in Europe at present. The Commission says the plan is unclear, underdeveloped and that the "sizeable cumulative fiscal consolidation objective", which is presumably the language used by the Government, "is neither allocated to the revenue or expenditure side nor supported by measures". It is a damning criticism because what it is really saying, in rather polite terms, is that the plan is simply wishful thinking by the Government. This comes from an authoritative and independent source, the European Commission. It confirms what Fine Gael has been saying for some time, that the Government has failed to set out a credible, fair and balanced plan for economic recovery.

We can talk about the banks and the importance of the banking sector to the Irish economy as the necessary building block for economic recovery but we also need a credible Government which, when confronted with problems in the banking sector, public finances or otherwise, can produce credible plans to solve those problems. What we have at present is a Government that is bereft of ideas and which, in the case of the Anglo Irish Bank nationalisation, did not disclose to the Houses the basis on which it made its decisions. It withheld information. When the Minister was in this House and when we were agreeing to the nationalisation plan, he did not disclose full information. That means he misled the House. It is important that the Minister return to this House, correct the record and disclose the full information. It is this type of behaviour by the Government which has destroyed its credibility. We have no chance with this Government of getting out of our current economic problems.