Caít Keane (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. She genuinely has her heart in the right place. As the previous speaker said, it is difficult to be in a position where one does not have money to spend to solve a problem. Money does not always solve a problem but it can put a sticking plaster on it, so to speak. This Minister is about looking at the grass roots and what will solve problems.

The budget was difficult for every Department, and it was a difficult year to be framing a budget. I know the Minister was put to the pin of her collar to bring forward the fairest budget possible under the difficult financial circumstances in which we find ourselves with the bailout programme and the constraints over our national spending power.

I was always told that it is best to cut one's cloth to suit one's measure, and that is what the Minister has found herself doing. We should consider changing Standing Orders in the Dáil and the Seanad such that when a Member states that he or she is against a proposal in a money Bill, a budget or a social welfare Bill, that Member must find an alternative source for the money. If a member puts forward a proposal, he or she must have a funding source to back it up. I was a councillor for 20 years and when the budget came forward, if a councillor was serious about an alternative proposal and wanted to get it through, he or she had to find a way to fund that, even if it affected another initiative. I hear people from every party say we should not do this or that. What should we do? What is the alternative? If we made the change I have suggested, we would be taken seriously as politicians, rather than being seen as a talking shop where we say we should not be doing this or that. What should we be doing, if that is the case?

The Minister stated she was asked to find €440 million in savings. She baulked at that and said it was not possible to do it. The Minister should be complimented because she has put up a good fight. She fought the good fight and the figure was reduced to €226 million.