Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)

It has become accepted wisdom that more than €4 billion must come out of this economy in the upcoming budget or there will be €4 billion in cuts. I would like a debate on these specific issues. Two points must be made clear and this must happen in advance of any such drastic cutbacks. First, it must become clear there is a new system of governance in this country, namely, that value for money and elimination of waste will become an article of faith. In other words, there can be no repetition of the FÁS scenario. This repeats itself all over the place but has not been exposed. I want the Leader to organise a full debate on how we can establish this in the first place.

Second, there must be a clear commitment that the weak and vulnerable people who depend on rural transport and frontline services will not become the scapegoats for the years of waste in this economy. We need to discuss the elimination of waste and this cannot be sorted out on the backs of the weak and the needy. We need a clear commitment on both principles. There must be a full rolling debate in this House, and the backdrop to any set of drastic cuts must be first to establish the elimination of waste - there are many areas to do this - and, second, to establish the rights of the vulnerable. We must establish those principles or there is a danger we will exploit and make victims of the poor and needy in our society. The people outside these gates will not accept anything else.

To pick up a theme of Senator Norris yesterday, we will have a revolutionary situation in the country next spring if we do not get these matters right now.