Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

I am not sure I have an awful lot more to add. I very much agree with Senator Gilroy's comments. Section 3 follows section 2 as night follows day, and the House has divided on section 2 already. I am not convinced about Senator Cullinane's view that some kind of quantitative easing in the ECB would solve our problem. The reason wealth is behind a currency is that it provides a guarantee. If one starts printing money, as he describes it, one immediately undermines the wealth that exists within that currency. That is not a solution. One could argue that the three-year money at 1% that the ECB lent to the banks before Mr. Draghi's considerable initiative in December was a kind of quantitative easing. The real problem is that there is no inter-bank lending at the moment. It is not just Ireland that is locked out of the money markets; the money markets themselves are locked out. If we take out the emergency liquidity funding provided by the ECB, there is very little activity going on. That is why it is so important that we resolve the problem with the euro once and for all. Our growth is hugely dependent on stability within the eurozone. When the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, was in France some weeks ago, he made the point that we could come back like a rocket if such stability could be achieved because, more than any other country in Europe, we produce many goods and services that we cannot consume. We must get them off the aisle, and as a consequence we need to be part of a hard trading currency so that we can sell our goods and services at a price that is to our benefit. We are like a cork bobbing up and down on the ocean; as the euro moves towards a stable position, we will recover more quickly. Our growth rates are twice those of other eurozone countries. Our economy is primed and we are ready to come back if we can achieve stability. On a broader level, the purpose of the European Stability Mechanism is to provide such stability and, on an individual level, to give us the backstop about which we have spoken in the past.

The Senator is suggesting, if I am interpreting him correctly, that we take some unilateral position on this. I refer him back to our party's manifesto in advance of the general election, in which we warned against this strategy. We said what we wanted to do in terms of senior debt, but we made it absolutely clear that we would not take some unilateral position and that we would work in the context of Europe to produce what we describe as a pan-European solution. It is important that a country whose economy is the same size as that of greater Manchester does not start telling bigger countries what it will or will not do. If we go down the road of taking a unilateral position on these matters, we will find ourselves very exposed very quickly. It will affect not only our reputation but also our economy and our ability to negotiate. Small countries such as Ireland have always punched above their weight in negotiations. We have a number of attractions and advantages, and taking up some unilateral position, for which the Senator has argued, would be dangerous. We would find ourselves out in the cold very quickly, and then where would we get the funds to make sure pensioners and carers and the unemployed were paid so they could stay in this country?

I will make one last point. The Senator has suggested a number of alternatives within the budgetary position of his party, but they are based on bogus figures. It would be a really good idea if all parties' submissions were sent to the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council in advance of the budget. Here is one fact for Senator Cullinane: 75% of all income earners in this country earn €50,000 or less, and they contribute 19% of the tax take. We have a very progressive tax system in that the more one earns, the more one pays. The OECD has referred to that. The real problem, traditionally, has been the number of people who do not pay income tax at the bottom. Up to 36% of all people who are working do not pay any tax. The numbers are not there to implement the Senator's budgetary solution for closing the deficit by taxing the wealthy, whoever they are. Who are the wealthy? That is an important question. They are the people with mobile capital and assets they can remove, as I said in my previous contribution.

Our position is to avoid levying huge taxes on work while there are around 440,000 people unemployed. We must create an incentive for people to move from benefits to work. However, we must also broaden our tax system, and the challenge for the Senator and his party, as we go into the budgetary process and in view of the Government's commitment to introduce a new property tax, is to tell us how Sinn Féin would do it. The Government has already said that next year we will have to find €3.5 billion; broadly speaking, this equates to €1.25 billion in additional taxes and €2.25 billion in expenditure cuts. Let us take the €1.25 billion on the tax side. A property tax will take in, at best, €0.5 billion. Thus, we still have to find €750 million on the tax side for next year. That is a lot to ask in the context of the last number of budgets. The challenge for the Senator's party is not to oppose everything. It is living in a fantasy world in which it goes after the rich - a group it does not define - and leaves everyone else alone, with no cutbacks on the expenditure side, no tax increases for those on middle and lower incomes and just the small percentage of people at the top providing all the money that is needed. The numbers are not there to justify that. Sinn Féin's proposal is a fantasy that can be presented as an alternative in five minutes on RTE, but when one looks at it properly, one can see it is not an alternative. Yes, of course we can do more in the area of taxation, and we must weigh up the impact this would have on work. I am not suggesting it cannot be done, but to say it is the solution is just fantasy, and anyone with any credibility from an independent economic organisation would come to the same conclusion.