Michael Mullins (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Creighton, to the House and thank her for the update on the situation in the eurozone. As the Minister said, this is an extremely worrying and unpredictable time for everyone. People are frightened and confused and the complexities of the problems are beyond the comprehension of most ordinary people. I am sure many Members of this House would admit to being confused by the complexities of the problem within the eurozone.

There was great optimism and hope following the European Council and euro summit on 27 October in terms of the identification of key priorities for internal economic policy. However, the political chaos in Greece and uncertainty in Italy during the past week has undone much of that good work. People are concerned and confused by the difference of opinion between economists and experts in regard to how to resolve the problems within the eurozone, in particular those in Ireland. Those of us who tune into current affairs programmes are aware how widely experts can differ.

Since taking office seven months ago, this Government has acted responsibly and in the best interests of the country. It had a huge job to do to repair our reputation abroad. Everyone accepts that was a major job of work. The Government has astutely negotiated interest rate reductions of €10 billion, convinced the troika to support job creation measures, secured approval to reverse the reduction in the minimum wage and obtained an extension to 2015 in the fiscal adjustment period. Political stability in Ireland, in contrast to Greece and Italy, leaves us well positioned to attract inward investment when we begin to emerge from the recession. I agree with the Minister of State, Deputy Creighton, that this is dependent on us honouring our commitments and debts.

We must hope that the measures being put in place to put Greek debt back on a sustainable footing, coupled with the extension of the capacity of the EFSF and measures to ensure Europe's banks are adequately capitalised, will have the desired effects. As in Ireland, poor governance and regulation throughout the eurozone is the cause of where we are today. I welcome the tightening of surveillance of national budgets, more rigorous oversight of member states in excessive deficit and the changes at official level. The appointment of a president of the euro summit is welcome. We must never allow what has happened throughout the eurozone to occur again. We should certainly support changes to the treaty if these are necessary. However, like Senator Leyden, I would be concerned about any attempt to alter our corporation tax rate of 12.5% because much of our inward investment is attracted by that low tax rate and we have to fight to maintain it at all costs.

While this is a very worrying time for many people, we have to welcome the progress that has been made, as the Minister of State has outlined. We should all be supporting the Government in its efforts in these difficult times. We need to restore confidence in our economy. We need to get banks lending to small business and we need to help small and medium businesses. We need to encourage multinationals to invest further in our country. We have to reduce the scourge of unemployment and we have to give people back their dignity. We have a strong team batting for us in Europe, led by our Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny and our Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan and the Minister of State, Deputy Lucinda Creighton. We wish them well as they have a difficult job but they have got off to a good start and significant progress has been made in seven months. I am very confident that if we are back here this time next year, we will be in a much better situation.