Joe O'Toole (Independent)

The Government should come clean in respect of the issues to which the Senator referred. It would boost confidence if it were to admit that it made mistakes, if it identified those mistakes and indicated how it intends to approach matters from now on.

I am glad the Government is involved in discussions with the Opposition parties and the social partners and is trying to develop a strategy. The next three weeks will be critical. What happens in that period will prove more important than the budget that is due to be introduced. During the next three weeks, every opportunity should be taken to explain to people, in terms they can understand, the seriousness of the difficulties we face. They should also be informed of the remedial measures that will have to be taken and be reassured that the weak and vulnerable will be protected from the essential cuts that must be made.

It is also important that people are informed as to when it is likely that our problems will be resolved. One of the difficulties that always arises is that if a Government takes emergency measures — for example, those relating to the declaration of the Emergency — they tend to remain in place for ever. A timeframe must be set down so that people will know when our current difficulties will end.

If the Government can convince the social partners of the need to take tough action, I will champion that cause in this House. It is necessary that we should do so, however unpopular it might be. It will not be easy to ask the representatives of the business community, the unions or the organisations that make up the social pillar to accept what it will be necessary to do. However, if they can be convinced with regard to the measures that need to be implemented, Members have a duty, despite the wave of unpopularity that will certainly follow, to sell and support those measures. Let no one believe that taking tough action will satisfy critics in the media because those individuals will simply focus their attention elsewhere. We must be reassured by and confident in the decisions that must be made so that progress will be made.