Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

There is a certain amount of detail in this report and, like most Members, I have only had the opportunity to go through it briefly. The report also contains a significant amount of waffle and postponement of the rainy day. It pushes certain matters forward to a time when the Government will be a bad memory for the majority of the people. According to Ministers this afternoon, this report received an enthusiastic response in Frankfurt and Brussels.

I cannot understand the Minister for Finance's thinking when he publishes reports. Since he first spoke on the banking crisis in September 2008, he has been spoofing, guessing and telling half-truths. I am not allowed to accuse anyone of lying in this House. The Government's various spoof responses, which reached a crescendo last weekend, would have made a pathological liar blush.

This report is supposed to set the economy in train for the next four years. Will the Minister of State point out the references in the report to the banking crisis, the very reason we are told the IMF is in the country. This report was supposed to outline the 40% front-loading of cuts, yet it does not provide the detail we would have liked.

Fine Gael agrees with the broad parameters of this recovery plan. The European Commission, however, will allow a new government to reserve the right to renegotiate the specifics of this plan between Ireland, the EU and the International Monetary Fund, IMF. Accordingly, if the Government collapses, most of the targets in this report can essentially be renegotiated. I suspect much of it will remain but it can still be renegotiated.

The Government's responsibility was to give confidence back to the people which it has not achieved with this report. If one is going to bring in the European Central Bank, ECB, and IMF into the country, then this report should have been a little more forceful.

I was told by colleagues that on the Order of Business that the Green Party was getting wishy-washy about its intentions. The little hissy fit its Members threw during the week now seem to be nothing more than a ploy to renegotiate another programme for Government in the new year. Does this kind of behaviour instil confidence in the people during the middle of this crisis? The people and the EU – God help the Government if the IMF insists on it – want a budget passed and stable government to get the country out of this crisis. Nothing we have seen so far, however, can give us any sort of confidence.

The Taoiseach loves using the euphemism "We are where we are". I will tell the Minister of State where we are. The Government has been completely abandoned by international investors. It has lost the people's confidence and its instability is a serious threat to the economic future of the country as well as being considered a significant threat to the European Union. One would not think any of this from the Government's public responses, however.

The European Commissioner, Olli Rehn, visited Dublin two weeks ago not to sample the nightlife but to put some sense into the Government, which clearly has not happened. The Government's approach to the forthcoming budget shows how out of touch it has become. It has no problem taking a four-week holiday for Christmas when the country is in such a crisis. We should be taking no holidays but giving confidence to the people by bringing forward the Budget Statement and the Finance Bill.

Most people do not understand the Budget Statement is not the endgame but the opening chapter of the Finance Bill. If the Finance Bill falls in the second half of January or February, the whole budget falls and, in turn, the Government which would leave us in exactly the same position we are in now. That is why the Government has been asked to bring forward the budgetary process as quickly a possible.

The national recovery plan may be important, but fast-tracking the budgetary process must be the number one priority. The Minister's excuse for not doing so is that he does not have all revenue information to hand. Most tax payments due from the self-employed are in since the beginning of last week so that claim is unacceptable. Two weeks ago when I was coming into Leinster House, a motorcyclist was thrown off his bike by a car. As a doctor, I naturally responded to the accident. If I had used the Minister's logic, I would have just stood there waiting for the ambulance. Similarly, in an economic crisis, one moves quickly and works as best as possible with what is at hand. One does not sit around waiting for the whole economy to go pear-shaped and then respond. All the Government has done so far is sit around, publish a report and do everything in its own good time, like the Bulmer's advert slogan. This report will not instil confidence or be enthusiastically received with rapturous applause in Frankfurt and Brussels. In fact, our European partners will be laughing at it because they expect some sort of leadership from Ireland that it is getting its finances under control. The Minister needs to take this issue seriously. We need to bring forward the budget and the Finance Bill and get them out of the way. Then we need to have a general election early in the new year because this outline plan will be implemented over the course of four years. Many of the main recommendations have been pushed back until 2012, 2013 and 2014. Some of the easier tax increases were announced today but it does not contain the detail we hoped for. There are many words and much talk about reducing red tape, tackling waste and dealing with bureaucracy but no timeframes are involved and there is no coherence on what we will do. The Croke Park agreement is a massive project for the Civil Service and the public service and it is not being implemented at the speed necessary to make it a realistic proposition for our public finances. On a number of occasions I have asked the Minister of State to point out what is being done with the Croke Park agreement, the transformation programmes and the changes in work practices. Most people can understand this example. We were told that the working day in the health services would go from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and that all people in the health sector would have an average working day of 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. How far has this got? It has gone nowhere. This is what has gone wrong. I am sure the Minister of State will expand on some of the points during the course of the budget but overall the plan will not be received with much enthusiasm.

Student fees have increased and water metering and property taxes will be introduced but this does not include the strong stuff we need to know about. These are big issues, with student fees increasing to €2,000 a year. The introduction of a property tax has been postponed until 2012. More was expected of the report to show that the Government is serious about reducing the size of the Government, increasing the efficiency of Government and the services provided by it and reducing the cost of these services. There is no detail in the plan, just a few points about cutting the minimum wage, reducing public service numbers and increasing costs on a few core issues. The Minister of State should have provided more detail to give us the confidence we need in this report. Sadly, that is lacking and it will not relieve the concerns of the public about this Government and the state of our economy. In fact, it may add to the concerns of the public and I am disappointed in that.