Geraldine Feeney (Fianna Fail)

He is still in the Chamber. He was still here when I mentioned him.

Fine Gael shouts and roars at us to stop lecturing it. It should put forward good workable plans. Senator Buttimer criticised one particular cut in the entire budget but he does not give us any solutions. What is Fine Gael's alternative? When somebody the calibre of Mr. Sutherland states what he did this morning, the Government and the rest of the country will sit up and listen. Senator Regan stated Mr. Sutherland asked for this measure approximately one year ago. I do not know whether this is quite true but I am sure if he stated it he must have done so in some shape or form.

The Government and every citizen realised that whether we call it a mini-budget, a crisis budget or an emergency budget, it had to happen. We are where we are. There is a real lesson in what Mr. Sutherland had to say this morning particularly for Members of the Opposition and for his own party, Fine Gael. He stated he was saddened that it was the diaspora which was doing more for the country than the people in the country. He stated the negative talking has to stop. Yes, there are negatives but there are also positives. Talking ourselves up is not the right thing to do but we must start talking about the positive things of which we should be proud. We should be delighted that we have 2 million people employed in the country. These are things we should be speaking about. We should also be proud that we are one of the countries going through a recession which is still capable of borrowing money and is allowed to do so. There are countries which are not capable of doing so and are not allowed.

Considering the budget as a whole and listening to the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach, it is about jobs but it is not about jobs tomorrow morning, the following morning, next week or next month. The Taoiseach stated there was no silver bullet. It is about jobs in the longer term. There are no easy solutions. If there were we would not be standing here defending and speaking about a very severe budget.

I asked members of the Cabinet where do the Taoiseach and Minister for Finance go for their advice. The reason I asked was that I hear Fine Gael and the Labour Party, in particular Deputies Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore, stating they have produced documents. I do not make light of this because it is the first time we have had this. However, it is also the first time that we had to have it. I commend Fine Gael and the Labour Party for doing this. Obviously, the Government must listen to somebody who has a greater expertise in how to run a country and bring it back to where we need it to be in a couple of years when the global recession is over. I was told the Government seeks advice from those running the national treasury. To me, they must be competent and knowledgeable people who have practice of running the country for us and know the best possible ways to get us out. They are advising the Government and have advised the Government on the budget.

Most people would state that middle to working class people are the most severely hurt by Tuesday's budget. Yesterday we were told that the levies are here to stay and will be incorporated into our pay packets from next December. We had got used to benchmarking and this has stopped. When we return to better times will the levies be reviewed, removed or halved? It would give a little hope to people in the middle income bracket such as nurses, gardaí and teachers.

We are all concerned about people on fixed income social welfare and most of them are in that position through no fault of their own. I can see why removing the Christmas bonus had to be done. We have so many people on social welfare now that it was a choice between cutting the payment or doing away with the Christmas bonus. By not giving the Christmas bonus we do not cut the benefit and a much wider block of people will benefit from it.

I make this suggestion for what it is worth and it probably will not see the light of day. The Government could come up with a scheme by which it would give half the bonus and perhaps from September to December, it would take, say, €5 out of every social welfare benefit so that the recipient would pay 50% and the Government pay the other 50%. I know there are many people who rely on the extra week at Christmas to do whatever they have to do, whether that is the Christmas shopping or food or whatever. These are just two things I ask the Government to consider but I commend the budget. It is not easy.

Everybody has felt the pain, including everybody in this House. I am glad to see we are leading by example and we were the people who were the first mentioned by the Minister when he stood up last Tuesday. I ask the Opposition to come on board. We do not expect them to talk it up but we ask them to realise what a bad state the country is in and things will not get any easier. We can all pull together. In the words of Peter Sutherland this morning, we are not a basket case, as we are being presented in Ireland. We are sending out the wrong message and that was his reason for deliberately writing the piece in the international financial media a few weeks ago where he wrote that Ireland is not the country being perceived outside of these shores. There is an onus on the Opposition parties. They have neither the alternative nor the solution. I ask them to grow up and realise what is going on.