Michael D'Arcy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and I also welcome Senator O'Brien's contribution, which was positive in the main, which is a good thing. We tend to have less eating one another up in this Chamber than in the other House.

A falling debt ratio means very little to the public. The truth of the matter is that most people do not understand it. I spoke to a gentleman yesterday who said that we are closer to the next recession than we are to the last one. When one hears a statement like that, one realises how true it is. We have got to get our debt ratio down and explain to the public what that means. To put it into context, in 1997 the State spent €18.5 billion at budget time. A decade later, the then Government spent €63.5 billion. That was spending gone mad and the era in which we lost the run of ourselves. What we have done today is put into place the final budget of this Administration but as has been mentioned earlier, we are only half way through the process. This Administration said very clearly on day 1 that a ten-year programme was required which is why the Taoiseach has said that this Government will run until spring 2016.