Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. As stated by him, the reduction in the State's borrowing requirements over ten years amounts to ¤20 billion. It is good news and is a relaunch for us in terms of the removal of that monkey from our backs.

We have the monkey off our backs now and we have the chance, on 17 March in the White House, to move on the EU-US free trade area proposed by President Obama in his State of the Union address. I look forward to changes in policy. This one is gone.

I never enjoyed being a poster boy for the previous situation because a poster boy stares blankly from the poster and says nothing. He gradually loses his colour and bits of him fall off in the wind and rain. Eventually, he is scraped off and replaced by a poster for a different product. Let us not be the poster boys for anything.

Let us bring our intelligence to play on these economic policy issues. We should have examined the euro's design faults. It is funny that Sweden, Denmark and the United Kingdom read the small print. Do we have enough expertise in the public service to make sure we do not sign up for something silly when it comes from Europe? The Minister of State mentioned the reforms in the Department of Finance, which were vitally necessary because we were taken to the cleaners that night. In parliamentary terms, there should be never again be an incorporeal Cabinet meeting. It means nothing, with no minutes or record of who was present. How did people give away ¤64 billion, including ¤32 billion to the bank the Minister of State was talking about? We must have parliamentary procedures to defend the Exchequer against that, which is why we proposed that the Fiscal Responsibility (Statement) Bill. It was taken up by the Minister.

The Minister and Minister of State were very good in remaining here until 6 a.m to go through all the details. That is a significant change from doing business behind closed doors, which led to so many problems. What kind of people are the public interest directors of banks? What kind of people were the public interest directors of the Central Bank? What was wrong with the Central Bank that it could not see this crisis? Yesterday, we asked that Science Foundation Ireland take a walk and meet people in the Royal Irish Academy. People other than insiders have ideas about public policy. Morgan Kelly should have been involved. The former Minister, Brian Lenihan, went to see David McWilliams and they had some garlic. Parliament cannot give away policy to insiders, including the social partners, whose role must be criticised. If someone goes into the Department of Finance and suggests that ¤64 billion would be a start, that must end. We need more openness and transparency, even though they are clichés.

Replicating the Fed may be worthwhile but it is not what we signed up for. There should have been warning lights in the design of the euro. Does somebody have a sense of irony in respect of the Central Bank taking over the former Anglo Irish bank HQ? I hope we paid them zilch for the building but it is a funny memorial to the level of incompetence that applied on both bodies in getting us into this mess. We must insist on a much higher standard of appointment to State boards and a proper Government economic service. There must be a relaunch of the free trade initiative on St. Patrick's Day.

Instead of crude, across-the-board cuts in public expenditure, how about analysis and documentation to show that we are dropping the least useful programmes? How about a capital programme that actually provides rates of return on different projects? The sum of ¤20 billion is important but a lap of honour will be useless. We have many reforms to do and we must ask how 18 people, which is about as many customers as Anglo Irish Bank had, managed to make themselves a vital national institution. What appraisals were done? Let us get this into the open because we cannot repeat the parliamentary, administrative and banking regulation mistakes. Much institutional reform is required and I have criticised the Government because it has been slow on institutional reform. Now that we have debt removed, let us see a whole new way of conducting Government.

I would not mind a firesale even though the Minister of State is reluctant. If someone asks what one did in the recession, one could answer that one got a house in Leitrim for ¤4.82. We should not leave them just there because they are worth something in asset values. The Minister of State mentioned that the Department of Finance had recovered, which is good because it played a leading role this time. After the period 2008 to 2010, our public administration and parliamentary institutions must combine with all sides of the House. Members will help to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.