Nicky McFadden (Fine Gael)

I take the Minister of State's last comments. While I assume he meant them to be a great support to the next Government, I did not intend to start bickering when I began my contribution. However, the tone of the Minister of State's and Senator Boyle's comments have been less than helpful. Whether the motion has some points that are in the Government programme does not matter. The bottom line is that we have a huge haemorrhage of jobs. The public at large would not appreciate the kind of silly bickering that is going on in the House between the Minister of State's party and the Green Party, which is most unhelpful.

Each job that has been lost is costing the Exchequer €20,000 per annum, and 372,800 people have lost their jobs. While I hate referring to these people as percentages, 11% of the workforce have lost their jobs. These are individuals with mortgages and car loans who are trying to put their children through college and put food on the table. They would not appreciate the Minister of State pointing the finger at our very helpful job creation proposals. The Minister of State should bear in mind that the Government has been in control for 12 years. What has it done, particularly with regard to green energy? What has the Green Party done? Hurlers on the ditch is how I would describe them.

I worked in the ESB and I know it was established in a crisis in 1927. We can see how it has evolved, how, in the Minister of State's words, it has adapted to extraordinary technologies and is able to provide the national grid with reliable energy. However, it is extremely expensive. Yesterday, I visited a manufacturing company in Athlone which has had to let go 50 people from its employment base of 193 due to unsustainable energy costs. It is an issue we must examine. It is referred to in our proposals as well as in the Government's glossy proposals, to which the Minister of State alluded. We need to address the infrastructure deficit that is costing so much money. We must allow people to maintain jobs, which is what this motion is about. I appreciate the idea of smart metering. I know the Government and the Green Party spoke about this but some measure must be put in place.

The Minister of State glossed over the issue of broadband. Fine Gael had a Private Members' motion on broadband some weeks ago. Broadband access in this country is a disgrace. Senator Feargal Quinn noted that he does not have broadband 15 miles from this city centre. That every person does not have access to broadband at this stage is a disgrace.

We propose to go a step further and introduce next generation broadband, which would make speeds of up to 100 megabytes per second available to 90% of the population. This would make education, health and entertainment inclusive for our people and would create jobs. The idea of clean bio-energy and ocean-related wave energy is the way forward. There must be more investment in research regarding this type of energy, which must be made available and accessible to the public.

The other part of our motion relates to powering our cars with renewable energy, which would be domestically produced rather than spending millions importing fossil fuels and continuing the dependency on such fuels. An infrastructure must be developed for a grid whereby we can store renewable energy to power our cars. This would not cost much and it is an issue we need to begin to consider.

I also wish to refer to transport and water services. The Athlone area has been waiting for a main drainage system for I do not know how long. The River Shannon is now very polluted. We have come out of the Celtic tiger era but the Government has failed the people of the midlands by not providing a main drainage system. Our source of drinking water is polluted because there is no system to clean the water from domestic housing and business, which is an outrage.

That the Minister of State criticises our efforts to support and encourage the Government, when it still has two years left in office, although I am not sure about that——