Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

It served us both very well. We learned about the economics of monetary integration, labour economics and other such issues. I am delighted to see the Minister of State doing so well. I am also delighted with his portfolio. I wish him the very best of luck with it in the future. The area for which he has responsibility, especially in regard to FÁS, is important in terms of many of the issues relating to the motion that we are discussing.

I wish to pick up on the comments made by my colleague, Senator Twomey, especially his point that the only route forward for the economy is one that is export-led as that will help us to regain our competitiveness. He referred back to the 1990s as an example of how that was done. He is dead right. Many others agree with the point he made. However, there is one big difference between the situation in which the country finds itself and where we were at in the 1990s. Now, we are in the middle of a global recession but in the 1990s when our country was moving forward we were operating in a global economic environment that was benign. As we addressed our competitiveness and produced the right goods and services, the benign and positive environment ensured that others wanted to buy our goods and services, which helped pull our country forward. That is no longer the case.

We now find ourselves in a global economic slump where this country is doing far worse than it should be. One just has to look at the United Kingdom, our key export market for goods and services, and the difficulties that economy is facing in terms of cutbacks and rising taxation levels. It is on a par with us or is arguably worse. The strong export markets on which we have depended in the past are weaker than they were in the 1990s and that will pose a huge challenge to us.

The other challenge we face is what is happening to interest rates. I made a similar point in the discussion on the Social Welfare and Pensions (No. 2) Bill. When our country moved forward in the mid-1990s and up to 2003, it was doing so in an environment in which interest rates were either flat or falling, or if they went up they did so temporarily and they came down again. The likely situation that the global economy and the local economy will face is increased interest rates in the future. The other factor that will affect many of the other export markets in which we compete is that the level of tax paid by many of the consumers on whom we rely to buy our goods and services abroad will increase also. They are important points that are germane to the discussion.

We can consider what happened in the 1990s and say we need to return to that model, which we do, but that is only a start. That is the essential first step we have to take. The reason for that is that the environment in which this country is competing and looking to secure and retain our economic independence is far more challenging, difficult, insecure and volatile than has been the case in recent times, and certainly than was the case in the 1990s. The kind of measures that we need to put in place and the plans we implement must be of a higher quality and impose far greater rigour than heretofore. They also need to be more agile and nimble than they have been in the past. That is a point our party well understands.

I have made this point many times previously in debates such as this one. Before I became actively involved in politics I worked in a company that exported goods and services. I saw jobs being created and jobs being lost. If we wish to get that kind of integration in place again and make it positive what we have done in the past will not be good enough anymore. I am reminded of one of the many definitions of "insanity", that is, one does the same thing again but expects a different result. Measures taken will take the country so far, but they will not return us to the prosperity and security we all want. My party recognises this and has put in place proposals and made suggestions about how we can do it. It is important to reflect on the degree to which politics has changed for those of us who are unlucky enough to be in opposition. We accepted that savings of €4 billion had to be found; we spelled out how we would do it and brought forward specific measures. The budget was announced last Wednesday and the previous Friday my party said what it would do differently. We recognised the need for wage levels in the public service to be cut and argued how we would do it differently.

On jobs recovery, the quality of our plans, including their detail and costing, is superior to that of any of the plans the Government has. One should look at our NewERA plan and the plan to reduce employers' PRSI, how that would be funded and the number of jobs that would be retained and secured. The quality of thinking and the type of proposals being made are far ahead of what other Opposition parties are producing and easily on a par with what the Government is doing. They are more in touch with the competitiveness of the outside world and the challenges the country faces.

I refer to the plan for the smart economy which I am sure will be mentioned. Show me examples of a deadline, a specific measure, a costed plan or anything against which progress could be measured in that document? I would be delighted to see any such examples. For a plan which has been proposed to try to move the economy forward, it is sorely lacking in vision and any detail.

Having gone through my party's plans and what we want to do differently, I would like to comment on the Government's amendment to the motion. The job of such amendments is to challenge the Opposition, but this one take things a step too far in terms of its grip on reality and where matters stand. It states this is the worst economic crisis since the foundation of the State and that the Government has identified the right priorities and taken the right action. Last Wednesday's budget was the fourth attempt at a budget correction by the Government in the past 18 months. Having looked to bring in up €6 billion in taxes, it reduced the tax take by €8 billion. If that is the decisive action we are to see, we need to see less of it.