Dan Boyle (Green Party)

Most Senators will welcome the agreement with the social partners on how we can address the immediate budgetary position. It is an agreement to help us meet the €4 billion adjustment the Minister for Finance will address in the other House next week and which we in this House will have another opportunity to debate. I agree with Senator Alex White in his contention that it is an interim measure and an exercise to meet the immediate problem of a €4 billion adjustment. We must be conscious that in documentation sent to the European Commission we committed to a further €4 billion adjustment next year and the following year. There shall be adjustments until 2014. On that basis, we can only see today's agreement as an interim measure and must constantly examine the cost of the public service in terms of wages and the numbers working within it. The adjustment we will be making on 9 December will only be one of three or four to be made in subsequent budgets. On these grounds, we can only welcome the fact that there is some agreement and a sense of reality entering the wider public debate on our difficult budgetary position. We cannot avoid forever the more difficult decisions that lie ahead.