Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. It is good to have him here as always. I was eight years old when he first became a Minister, and even though we all wish we were in government and so on, his experience and calm, assured approach has been a lucky benefit to this country at this particular time. Regardless of what might politically divide us, the ambition is the same for both sides of the House. Not too many people would be able for the job. Notwithstanding the fact that he is not a Fianna Fáil man, we are lucky that he is here at this time.

There are certainly relative successes. We all welcome wholeheartedly the improvement in the employment figures that we have seen. That has had an impact on our competitiveness. Emigration has obviously been somewhat of a release valve, but it is too simplistic to say that explains it on its own. We still have an issue with consumer demand. To be somewhat political, the Minister presided over difficult decisions to take €10 billion or more out of the economy. His predecessor had to take out €20 billion. In the current Minister's own words, his predecessor was an "excellent fiscal manager who got poor advice on banks". While I do not accuse the Minister of this, it is frustrating to see the Government and the Taoiseach collecting accolades internationally for work done by Brian Lenihan and the current Minister, and then when returning home, to seek to blame problems exclusively on the actions of the former Minister and some of his colleagues. There is no question that mistakes were made in the past. God knows there will never be a member of Fianna Fáil who will not readily acknowledge that or who will forget those mistakes. Equally, it is only fair to acknowledge the positive contribution made in taking two thirds of the hole from the economy in recent times.

It is unimaginable to go back to 2005 and predict what we have all gone through. Of course there were bears in the markets, but there were many more of us from all sides of the House, and from industry and civil society, who could not have predicted the pain, suffering and sacrifice forced on the Irish people over the past number of years. I do not agree with the head of the European Commission, Mr. Barroso, that there was no European or euro context to this. He is fundamentally wrong to say that, because there was. However, as a father, husband and even as a politician, I welcome the exit from the bailout, the projected good fortunes for our economy, the positive ESRI outlook, and television addresses by our nation's leaders. It sounds great, but what is in it for the people? While we collect the accolades for being the poster boys for getting it together, there is a huge amount we need to try to do for people. When will that job arrive? I know we are making some progress there. When we will have restoration of appropriate full social supports? We all have anecdotal evidence of how medical card issues are being dealt with in the era of austerity. How can we get over the mortgage arrears issue? When can that daughter, son, niece or brother return from Canada or Australia?

We need to be very conscious of channelling the gains to the people who need it, and I do not think we have done that. At times, we have taken the easy option and that will divide us politically. We have focused far too much on the easier targets rather than on those who could afford it. Those who have a stronger voice seem to go relatively unmolested in terms of what they could give. Those earning more than €100,000 could have given more, but we did not ask them. They were conditioned to give more, but we did not go to them. Of course they would not have liked it; none of us would like it but they are better placed to shoulder the burden than others who did so. That is regrettable. It should not be about those aged over 70 or the respite grants, or some of the harsher cuts we have seen. Were they really necessary? I would argue that they were not necessary and that we left certain people aside. If we have truly turned the corner, we must focus on channelling those savings directly into the pockets of the hard pressed families. That is best done with the help of transaction taxes, fuel rebates and so on, where people would see an immediate impact. That will help consumer confidence and consumer spending, which sadly is down 1% yet again.

When business was being ordered this morning, I did not realise that we only had five minutes to speak on this issue. That is far too little for this debate and it certainly does not do justice to the good efforts of the Minister or to what we might have been able to add to those efforts in this House.