Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 4, line 16, to delete "year" and substitute "quarter".

When we spoke on Second Stage earlier, we said we should consider a new way of doing business. The Government should be as open as possible in responding to this House, not just with regard to this Bill but in many other aspects of budgetary decisions that are being made and will be made in the coming years. It is important the House is kept well informed and is aware of what is happening with regard to this legislation.

There are obvious pitfalls in this bailout of Greece. The Minister stated in his speech earlier that the cornerstone of Greek policy would be budget cuts to reduce its deficit to below 3% by 2014. We have made similar statements with regard to our own budget. Greece is intending to make budget cuts of €30 billion over that time. This is a considerable amount, even in an economy the size of Greece's. It intends to have a budget surplus of 5% after a decade. These are significant targets that must be reached by the Greek Government over the next couple of years in order to fulfil the terms of the agreement it has made with the other eurozone countries.

Ireland has set similar targets for ourselves, but they will be difficult to attain. Our current deficit is greater then we expected. It is important that the House be kept informed on a regular basis of our progress in moving towards these targets over the next couple of years. That is the basis of most of these amendments. The Minister indicated in the Dáil that he would take these points into consideration. Perhaps the Minister of State would like to respond.