Feargal Quinn (Independent)

Would the Government buy a used car from any company, the rating for which has been downgraded by every agency in the world? We owe so much money that we have to borrow €500 million a week, as Senator Norris reminded us. No company could survive in that way. What would a CEO do? He or she would tell the stakeholders, his or her customers, staff and suppliers that the company faced a real challenge, that it would not be enough just to tick over, that the company would have to do something much more urgent to get back to where it was. It is easy to say, please, do not hurt the vulnerable and the others.

Last week I asked Mr. Colm McCarthy at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service what would happen if we really had to take cuts that brought us back to the standard of living we enjoyed in 1999. He said we would not have to go back that far - just to 2003. I can recall what happened in 1999 well and in 2003 even better. Our standard of living then was quite good. To those who ask the Minister not to touch the vulnerable, the old age pension, children's and jobseeker's allowances or the Christmas bonus I say we have to do this to get back to where we were in 2003. It sounds disastrous and people ask that these benefits not be touched.

The Forfás report, The Cost of Doing Business in Ireland in 2009, contains the answer to our competitiveness problem. It will not be solved by moving the four Border counties south. We have to become more competitive. We must get our costs down and must find a way to do this, which means taking difficult decisions. If these decisions returned us to the standard of living we enjoyed and our way of life six years ago, we could put up with this. I went to Dundalk when a store was closing and asked the people working there where they would get jobs. They said they were not sure. When I said they would probably have to go to Newry, only a 15 minute journey from Dundalk, they told me the rate of pay there was only one third of what they were earning. How can we manage to compete on the world market in that way?

I spoke on Radio Ulster last week. The presenter of the programme spoke about the fact that so many people from here were travelling north and asked about the jobseeker's allowance and other rates of pay and commented that our public service was not finding it easy to take cuts in pay. He said we talked about people earning €50,000 as being poor. In Northern Ireland £50,000 or €50,000 would provide a very high standard of living compared with the standard here. We must take steps to get our cost of living down and bring down the cost of doing business. It is not enough to take €4 billion out of the economy this year, we must take €8 billion.

Senator MacSharry talked about what had happened 20 years ago. Between 1987 and 1989 we took very tough decisions that got us back on track very quickly. We were not afraid to take them. There was strong leadership at that stage and it was said we would not succeed by spreading the cuts over many years but by doing so in a much shorter period. Within ten years we had doubled the number of people working in Ireland. We got the economy right within three years. We must do something like that, which involves leadership by the Government. It needs a Government that states, "We can do this," very much like President Obama who said, "Yes, we can." We can do it. Let us make sure we stop dithering, that we stop dodging the issue and that we grab hold of and take some tough medicine. That would put us back only to the standard of living we enjoyed six years ago. If we were to put up with this for a couple of years, we would be back where we were. We will not do this unless we become competitive and are willing to take the tough medicine. It is easier to take the tough medicine now than to say we will spread it over six years. If we are unwilling to take that medicine now, it will be spread out and we will not get on top of the economy. Let us go back to President Obama's phrase, "Yes, we can." We can do it, but we must be determined to do so.