Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

As my time is limited to five minutes, I will not be able to do justice to a Bill as complex as this one. I thank the Minister for her presentation and, not being patronising, I commiserate with her with regard to the difficulties she faced last week. It was a Government budget, not the budget of the Minister, Deputy Burton. I understand that the economic management committee of the Cabinet and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform finalised the amounts available to each Department and that the Minister had then to cut her cloth accordingly. I congratulate her on her effort to do a good job with limited resources.

I want to mention briefly some of the measures outlined by the Minister. I concur with Senator Norris that we need substantive Committee Stage debate on the legislation. I understand it is planned to provide three or four hours, which is more than was provided in the Dáil. However, I hope the debate will be open-ended because it is as we go through the Bill that the anomalies, difficulties and opportunities will come to light. We have a Minister who will be willing to take recommendations on board.

I recall the debate and furore at the time of the Minister's appointment about whether it was the appropriate job. It is one of the largest Departments of State with a budget of billions of euro. We must set aside and protect a block of money for the elderly, the young and the disabled. Outside of that, billions of euro are being spent on unemployment payments, rent allowance, disability schemes, etc. The question we must ask — it will not be solved in one or perhaps even in five budgets — is how we use the many billions of euro available to the Minister's Department to re-energise the economy and get people back to work. Indeed, this is a question for every Department. How does each Department use the maximum amount of resources available to it to re-energise the economy and get people back to work?

Payments, such as family income supplement, the back to work allowance, the back to education allowance and so on can be used more effectively to get people back to work. Senator Quinn mentioned the Ireland of the 1980s and the huge unemployment rate. The Governments and the politicians of the time, probably from all political parties, may have been a bit more far-seeing. Schemes, such as social employment schemes, community employment schemes, house improvement grant schemes and so on were all brought forward at a time when money was scarce but thinking was broader. The Minister will have to look anew at the possibility of using some of the schemes and resources in her Department to support, encourage and create employment and to try to change the mindset of those people on the jobseeker's allowance, in particular.

The Minister was criticised some months ago for using the phrase "culture——