Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

-----but I was sadly disappointed. While he talked about bringing the country back from the brink, he failed to acknowledge the role played by the Government in bringing the country to the brink in the first place. The need to stand and accept pain is quoted repeatedly.

I have worked in the real economy and was fortunate to do so for many years. I have been through it all - creating and losing jobs. The economy has one simple purpose - to create wealth which, in turn, will allow us to create employment and provide security for people. Members on the Government side talk about the need for cutbacks and adjustments, objectives with which I agree, but the only reason this should be done is to create the space needed to allow employment to be created and to put in place creative employment strategies to maintain employment and enhance our competitiveness. I note there is a subtle positioning of the need for dialogue. The Government wants to confine the debate to the need for cuts and adjustments, a word which is both clear and dangerous. It wants to confine the debate to what needs to be taken out of the economy. We need to do this, for the reasons highlighted in the newspapers from which I quoted, but that is only half the job that needs to be done. We are here to give people a feeling and a vision as to how employment will be created.

I refer to a document which I have studied and read in its entirety and which is being praised repeatedly entitled, Towards the Smart Economy, which was launched by the Government. It is without doubt one of the worst documents I have ever seen published by any Government in recent times. All it does is sum up everything that has been happening. There are no ideas for new initiatives, no new plans to make a difference to our future. It does not contain a single deadline or a single target delivery date. It is not possible, therefore, to evaluate how the specifics of the document will be delivered because every attempt has been carefully made to make it bland, non-measurable and not time specific.

Fine Gael has a very different view. Measures must be taken to recognise the need to cut the fiscal deficit and bring borrowing under control, while, at the same time, focusing on the one aspect that will make our recovery sustainable - the creation of employment. Every job created means an additional €20,000 in tax revenue and savings to the Exchequer in social welfare. My party made a proposal last week and there are more to follow, including a fully costed plan to reduce the higher rate of employer's PRSI by 20% and the lower rate by 50%. This plan would cost €900 million to implement. We have suggested the elements that would pay for such a plan, including broadening the tax base by the implementation of a carbon tax and a windfall tax on power generation activities and the abolition of the employee's PRSI ceiling. Our plan would accomplish two things, only one of which is being pursued by the Government. It would make a contribution to reducing the fiscal deficit to make the country secure again and accomplish the one objective that would make our recovery sustainable - job creation. The absence of a strategy to achieve this leaves a gaping hole in the Government's plan.