Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)

The budget tomorrow is about the protection of the people and the creation of jobs. It is a disgrace that we will not have an opportunity to discuss it tomorrow evening. I appeal to the Leader to amend the Order of Business tomorrow morning to allow time for a debate on the budget.

I echo the call made by Senator McFadden that the Leader invite the Minister for Social and Family Affairs to appear before the House. We are talking about the misappropriation of €2 billion of taxpayers' money. It is not the developers or the bankers but ordinary citizens who are defrauding the State of that amount. The Minister should come to this House to answer Members' questions on the matter.

Why has the Minister for Finance not come to the Seanad to discuss social partnership despite repeated requests that he do so by Senator Bradford, myself and others? This is a House of the Oireachtas but we have had no opportunity to have an input into the talks that ended in catastrophic failure last Friday. The Government has failed to protect the worker and the citizen. It has put citizens who work in the public sector at war with those who work in the private sector. We now have war in our society which has been created by bad leadership from the Government.