Joe O'Toole (Independent)

When we discussed the various economic issues over the past year, an issue which came up time and again was credit flow and pressing the banks to release credit. We see now what I said then, that no matter what one puts into the banks, it will not release credit. President Obama, who gave hundreds of billions of dollars to the banks in the United States, is having the same problem.

The other issue raised time and again was mortgage protection for people in difficulty with their mortgage repayments, which was raised on this side of the House by Senator Healy Eames, in particular, and by Senator MacSharry, who prepared a report. All these issues are now top of the agenda.

After the budget of last week, which effectively robbed the poor to pay the rich one more time, we saw the mask slip from the Minister for Finance on two occasions last Sunday night. He displayed a bullying and threatening attitude towards public servants who he told to put up with the cuts, otherwise he would come back with more next year. It sounded like something from the feudal times. I do not know whether ambition has taken away from good judgment in this situation but I thought it was horrific. I had not seen that for a long time in Government politics. It must be marked and recognised, although I do not expect Members opposite to agree with me.

We began this debate last year by hearing from Government, the private sector, the media, etc. about the Rolls Royce pensions of the public sector and the great positions of people in the public sector. To make them pay more justly, the Government placed a huge additional levy on them. I said at the time that there was a need for an extra payment. Now that public sector workers are paying 15% or more for 40 years for their pensions, the Government announced in the budget that it will dismantle the so-called Rolls Royce pension. There will no longer be parity.

Our telephones have started to ring and we have received e-mails, etc. There is a demoralised and a divided workforce and there is a bitterness among public sector workers. The mask slipped on the other side. We began to see very clearly that what we, on these benches, having been saying for one year is only the start of it. We are now starting on the profitable semi-State sector for no reason at all. The threat now is to reduce the pay of people working in that sector. The next step will be the private sector. It is the old fashioned strategy of divide and conquer - the public sector, the semi-State sector and then the private sector. The idea is that people will suffer at the end of it. I ask my friends on the other side of the House to have a good look at this. The approach is neither political, strategic nor good for the economy. In a public sector, we need to recruit the best, reward well and retain the best. With the level of broken morale there at the moment, we will fail on all three of these tasks. I ask the Leader to have a look at the issue as we will have more to say about it during the course of the week.