Earlier today I was pointing out that Ministers when they took office on 10 March were the sad inheritors of empty cupboards.
A visitor from a distant and remote planet would have been forgiven, having listened to the contributions from Labour and Fine Gael spokesmen, and most notably the Leader of the Opposition today, for believing that none of those spokesmen, or their parties, had anything to do with delivering the nation into the sad state in which we find ourselves. As we all know, the parties opposite are not the blushing innocents they have attempted to portray. They are as guilty as sin with regard to the difficulties of the nation.
Deputies opposite during the course of the debate chose to introduce an historical note. Their contributions, and in particular the contributions of Deputies Noonan, Desmond and Dukes, took us on a grand and highly selective tour of the economic events of the nation over the past couple of years. The dissertation of Deputy Dukes this morning focused on a special interpretation of the most recent economic history of the nation. Those contributions were careful to skirt around actuality. The contributors did not see fit to advert to the economic destruction of the nation in which their parties had participated. Contributors from the last Coalition were in their own way seeking to reiterate and re-establish myth as the basis of their economic analysis.
The mythology about Ireland's public finances which they have sought to peddle here is the same mythology that the parties opposite have been peddling to the nation for some years. Repetition has not improved the story's telling or improved its truthfulness.
It is well, therefore, following the contribution by Deputy Dukes, to attempt to re-establish the truth because the basis of the measures which have of necessity been taken in the budget is to be found in the economic history of the country over the past 15 years.
The difficulties for which we are all now paying started as far back as 1973. Deficit budgeting then became the order of the day. The Svengali who promoted the development, and later so successfully distanced himself and his party from all blame, is still with us although in a considerably less prominent position than heretofore. Between 1973 and 1977 there was a major rise in the nation's indebtedness. Foreign borrowing on a grand scale had got under way. Between 1973 and the beginning of the current year Ireland entrusted its affairs for the majority of that period to Coalition Governments. Throughout their periods of office the debt grew. For only a relatively short period of the 14 years mentioned was office entrusted to Fianna Fáil. During the 15 years in question the national debt grew by more than £20 billion. More than 60 per cent of that borrowing was made by a small handful of Coalition Finance Ministers. Deputy Dukes, who spoke so eloquently this morning, was one of those Ministers and it ill behoves him now to wave the mantle of fiscal rectitude in this direction.
Through the life of the last Coalition all economic observers came to one conclusion, that we simply could not spend ourselves rich. All agree on the damage being done by the level of our borrowing. In public the leaders of the last Government, including Deputy Dukes, illustrated an acute awareness of the nature of our problems. In Government, however, Fine Gael and Labour failed to act. They never succeeded in addressing the problems and by the time they left office earlier this year the national debt had effectively been doubled. While accepting the analysis with regard to borrowing Deputies FitzGerald, Dukes and Bruton, with the compliance, the support and the encouragement of all in Fine Gael and Labour, borrowed at a reckless pace. They are the facts and there is little point in the Deputies opposite seeking to portray a different picture. The evidence of their handiwork now faces us. If debt is our problem, and nobody here or elsewhere doubts that debt and the attendant drain on the nation's limited resources is one of the primary difficulties we face, then we know where to lay the greater part of the blame. Saying that the case is different does not make it so.
Debt, of course, is not the only thing that grew during the course of the last Coalition's term of office. So, too, did taxation. This time one short year ago the Coalition planned for a tax increase which was three times as high as the level of economic growth. The relatively modest proposals on the tax side in the budget now produce a great wringing of hands from the benches opposite. When we think of the taxation crisis we now face it is worth reminding ourselves that the leader of the last Coalition entered the election campaign in 1981 with a specific promise to reduce personal taxation to a standard rate of 25 per cent. When this policy was dusted off more recently by an emerging party of the far right that party, and their members, had visited on their heads the derision of all in Fine Gael. We know what happened on the taxation side during the life of the previous Government. Personal taxes were permitted to rise to the point where they have inhibited economic recovery and have punished initiative. In Roosevelt's words, "taxes are what we pay for the privilege of membership of an organised society". Sadly, in our society one segment of the community has more than paid its dues. Our taxation levels are rightly numbered among the nation's woes. The Leader of Fine Gael cannot and must not be permitted to try, as he has tried today, to shirk his and his party's responsibility in this regard.
A frightening national debt, a taxation system which has run riot and empty coffers were not the only problems which the Minister for Finance and the members of the new Government faced when they had to prepare the budget. They had to face an even greater problem, the mass unemployment which has resulted from the specific failures of the Coalition to implement anything approaching an effective employment policy. Historic levels of unemployment bring with them high social costs for society. They bring also high economic costs for Government. Like the burgeoning national debt, an equally unproductive high unemployment level lays an excessive claim on the nation's limited resources.
They are not the only calls on the nation's finances. There is no shortage of calls on the demand side. The shortages appear on the supply side. When we, as a nation, turn to the sources of the nation's revenue we become too acutely aware that the well, having been drawn on so frequently and copiously, has long since run dry. Every Deputy is familiar with the analysis.
I should now like to turn to the Government's response. The fact that the Government have responded so rapidly to the crisis they inherited is commendable in itself. More commendable still is the nature of the Government's response. They have held the line. Although this is a difficult and hard budget, it has sought to give priority to the protection of the interests of those who are marginalised in our society. It has sought to help those who must of necessity depend on the State. It has sought to cushion the weaker members of society from the cruel blows which arise from the economic mismanagement of the past couple of years.
It has been said that a hopeful disposition is not the sole qualification of a prophet. However, examining the budget I am filled with signs of hope. The budget which has been introduced is, indeed, a financially stringent one. This is appropriate at this time. The stringent measures which the budget takes are long overdue. I would suggest that in this budget the Government have done in three weeks what Fine Gael failed to do in four and a half years. Had these measures been taken in the past there would be less need for severity now.
At the same time as being stringent, however, the budget is humane. Some of the more anti-social measures proposed by the recently departed, not much lamented Government have been avoided and others have been diminished. Both for its economic rationality and its humanity the budget is to be welcomed.
As the main provisions of the budget have been well covered by other speakers, I will confine myself to remarks on issues which I feel are more important. The most important issue is the matter of public expenditure. A long time ago Voltaire proposed that "in general the art of Government consists of taking as much money as possible from one section of the citizens to give away to the others". Would that things were that simple now. Rightly the Minister for Finance identifies public expenditure as being the major issue for attention. A secretary of the Department of Finance who has long since passed on once commented that, sadly, "Ireland is a Republic with a republican purse, quite unable to afford either civil servants or politicians with imperial tastes". The common sense of that civil servant is given political expression in the decisions taken in relation to public expenditure in this budget. The Minister rightly says that we can no longer afford the existing levels of public service spending. The money is simply not there to pay for these services.
Reviewing this part of the budget, Deputy Barry Desmond, the great hand-wringer of the 25th Dáil, spoke at some length of the road to Damascus. I am a new Deputy and I had not realised until I came into this Chamber that Deputy Desmond was a biblical scholar. Deputies will, of course, recall that St. Paul was blinded and disoriented outside the city walls. It would seem that outside Government Deputy Desmond is suffering from the same symptoms. The glaring evidence of his own dismal failure in office has left him both blinded to reality and somewhat disoriented. It has already been noted in this House that Deputy Desmond's reconversion to the path of convenient social concern came at the 11th hour and the 59th minute of the 24th Dáil. In the preceding four years the same Deputy had, without any qualms, participated in the destruction of food subsidies, cuts in education, the devastation of remedial teaching and had dealt with alacrity in cuts in health expenditure as well as cuts, in real terms, in social welfare. Whatever about the road to Damascus, the prospects of an electoral hanging clearly did great things for Deputy Desmond's long-slumbering social conscience.
The Government in their work on this budget have conducted the most stringent paring of public expenditure programmes ever undertaken in this State. While all commentators agree that this is welcome, inevitably there will be some who will argue that the cuts affect too deeply their own areas of special interest. While there have been inevitable protests from special interest groups, the courage of the Government in their original approach to expenditure has been widely acknowledged. This is rightly so, I would submit.
In Government Fine Gael's commitment to those on social welfare was at best lukewarm. Their compassion was really nowhere to be seen. Deputy Dukes during his period as Minister for Finance said — I think it was in January 1983 — that social welfare recipients should accept that they could no longer expect as a right to be granted an annual increase in social welfare payments. That Deputy's erstwhile partners in Government, the Labour Party, recently claimed that Fine Gael in Cabinet fought originally for a zero increase in social welfare this year. Whether we can accept what Labour said I really cannot say, but knowing the previous Minister for Social Welfare as we do in Wicklow, it is not difficult to give some credence at least in this matter to what that party have claimed.
The Labour Party argued that there should be an increase of 4 per cent in social welfare payments from July. Like every Deputy in the House, I too would like to see the families and individuals who eke out their living on the margin being given an increase in benefit well beyond the level of inflation. The problem is not any shortfall in goodwill. Goodwill exists in great abundance. The problem is a frustrating shortfall in means.
There is a divergence in the Labour Party's expressed desire here while in Opposition and their most recent action while in Government. When they were in power, they had power to put their wishes into effect and they did not do so. Last year a 4 per cent rise in welfare payments was given in July. This level of increase coincided exactly with the 4 per cent rise in the inflation rate recorded in 1986. The increases in social welfare which are being proposed now are, like those agreed last year, equal to the level of inflation.
There are few in this House who would choose, if they had any choice in the matter, to live on social welfare payments. Those who must do so, without any choice in the matter, must have all of our sympathy. That said, it is worth while putting on the record of this House that social welfare payments, at this time, compare favourably with those of our closest neighbours. In January of this year, an old age contributory pensioner with a spouse was in receipt of £93 here, compared with £65 across the water. In addition, old age pensioners here are entitled to benefits in kind, such as free travel, free fuel and free telephone rental which are not available to their counterparts elsewhere. This is not to say that the levels of payment are satisfactory, nor is it to say that the levels of payment are at what we would have them were the funds available to be more generous. The point I am making is simply that, when compared with that which pertains elsewhere, the benefits which exist here are reasonably high.
A second positive step taken by the Government is the decision not to shorten the duration of entitlement for unemployment benefit from 15 months to 12 months as had been proposed. The outgoing Government had proposed that the maximum duration for unemployment benefit should be reduced from 15 to 12 months starting next July. In the budget the Government considered that this saving would have been achieved at the expense of the most vulnerable sections of the community and in recognition of that will not be implementing that proposal. This is welcomed.
Another welcome improvement in the budget is in the family income supplement scheme. This is an important scheme in that it provides a buffer for those marginal cases who are most injured by means-tested services. The budget provides for increases from July in the family income supplement. It also provides for an increase in the prescribed income limits for those qualifying for FIS, bringing them into line with increases in social welfare benefits generally. This is a positive measure. It will increase the maximum amount of earnings which a person may have while qualifying for FIS assistance.
I am not sure that the Minister for Finance will thank me for this, but I would encourage the Minister for Social Welfare and his Department to ensure that the public are made better aware of the FIS scheme in the future than they were in the past. The scheme is a good one. People who are entitled to benefit under it should be made aware of its existence and of their rights.
A most welcome welfare provision is the decision to extend from October next treatment benefits to the dependent spouses of insured workers. This is a costly provision, but a worthwhile one. It will be of great benefit to women. Allied to the other positive welfare provisions made in the budget, it poses the question in my mind whether the spokes-person for the Council for the Status of Women, who reacted so sharply to the budget, was familiar with the actual detail of the budget's provision at the time that the council's reaction was recorded.
The job search proposal which is introduced in this budget is also a worthwhile initiative. As the Minister for Labour pointed out in his contribution, the scheme is designed to tackle the problems which keep people out of the active workforce for months rather than for weeks. Every Deputy in this House must be familiar with the plight of people who are unemployed, and who have, either because of the period of their unemployment, or because of a lack of personal skills, lost the capacity to argue their case for employment effectively. The scheme is a good one and every Deputy in this House should wish it well.
I suppose I would be accused of being selective were I to deal with social welfare and not refer to the changes in pay-related benefit. Under the provisions in the budget PRB is being reduced from two phases of reckonable earnings to a single rate. This reduction will apply to new claimants only. These are similar proposals to those made by the outgoing Government. It is of course, regrettable that the modification of the PRB scheme should be forced upon us at this time by economic circumstances. However, it is worth while pointing out that, in the light of rising unemployment, other countries have had to take more drastic steps. Indeed, in the UK the pay-related benefit scheme has effectively been wiped out. In other European countries there have been significant reductions in benefit.
It is worth reminding Deputies that the Government have not gone along with the proposal by the outgoing Government to reduce the duration of PRB by three months for persons on benefit. On the contribution side there are changes too and again these arise from economic circumstances. Again they are less harsh than was proposed by the previous Government. Under the present budget proposals a person will now require four years' contributions instead of an increase up to five years.
On the education side there are cuts and again it is regrettable that this should be the case. However, in that regard there is one item of progress we should all welcome, and as a person involved in education I welcome the decision to overturn the action by the previous Government with regard to career guidance teachers. The decision taken by Fine Gael Ministers in this regard was ludicrous. For a relatively trivial saving those socially conscious ladies and gentlemen were prepared to put in jeopardy the future of a whole generation of young people. The Government's decision not to proceed with this is very welcome.
On health, the charges introduced for outpatients have attracted a great deal of attention. It is worth pointing out that this is not entirely new. A £5 charge was introduced in 1982 and subsequently abolished. The £10 charge being introduced is not a novel idea. It is certainly not the swingeing measure it has been misrepresented as being in the press and the media generally and from the benches opposite. The charge will not be a recurring one for subsequent visits related to the same illness. In effect, this charge will discourage the abuse, particularly in the larger urban areas, of the outpatients' and emergency services provided by our hospitals.
The £10 per day hospital charge has also been grossly misrepresented. As the Minister has made clear, there is to be a very strict limitation on the operation of this scheme. There will be a limit of £100 per year, for example. In addition the VHI have been instructed to introduce a scheme whereby families will be covered for costs arising from the new charges. Clearly, it will be prudent for families who are outside the GMS to seek cover under this scheme when it comes into operation.
In addition to the limitations mentioned, the impact of the charges will be further mitigated by the fact that the charges will not apply to GMS cases, maternity cases, infants under six months or hospitalisation arising from certain infectious diseases. Further, as the Minister has made clear, traditionally no family in Ireland had been denied necessary medical treatment because of lack of money, and this will not be changed by these measures.
However, there is some confusion within the population as to the system of charges being introduced. This confusion has been fanned by Opposition speakers both in their contributions here and in broadcasts. In the circumstances it would seem that it would be no bad thing if the Minister and his Department were to take advertising space to advise the public as to the very limited nature of the charges being introduced.
The most stunning hypocrisy has been evident in the reaction in this House from the benches opposite to the decisions with regard to the house grants scheme. Nowhere has this hypocrisy been more evident than in the contribution on the first day of the budget debate from Deputy Noonan who, with all the charm of a spoiled child being parted from a loved toy, spoke of grand larceny by this side. He seemed to lay claim to being the only one present with the welfare of this nation at heart. Much of what he said in his speech was humbug.
Deputy Noonan's concern for the building and construction industry would ring that little bit more sincerely were it not for the fact that the Government of which he was a Minister had overseen the virtual decimation of that industry. It is worth reminding ourselves that in the summer of 1982 close on 100,000 people were employed in that industry. By April 1986, four short years later, employment in the building and construction industry was just 75,000 persons and, certainly it did not increase in the last year.
Ministers in the last Government have extolled the success of the grants that have been terminated in this budget. The question arises: success by what criteria? Deputy John Boland boasted from time to time during his occupancy of the seat in the Department of the Environment that the number of applications was one such indication of success.
In the case of the home improvement grants there has been a phenomenal response to the grants scheme. We are told that the Department of the Environment have in excess of 115,000 applications approved or on the point of approval at a total cost to the taxpayer of £230 million. The question arises as to whether the taxpayers or the building and construction industry achieved anything like £230 million worth of value from the scheme. Spending £200 million should produce very significant expansions in employment. That in turn should relieve the burden of unemployment on the Exchequer, in turn relieving the burden on the taxpayer. None of these benefits has come through.
An equally clear fact is that the improvement grant scheme was poorly conceived. No economy in the world could introduce and sustain an absolutely open ended, nondiscriminatory grant scheme, as all Members of this House know well. Ministerial boasting that the quantity of applications denotes success of the scheme are about as sensible as a supermarket owner deciding to hand out prime beef free, gratis and for nothing and then boast about the increased throughput of his butchery department. Expenditure volume is not a measure of the success of any public programme.
As for the improvement grant scheme it cannot be said either that the key surrender scheme or the £2,250 builder grant scheme was a success. Both, and in particular the former, created a temporary and clearly finite jump in one part of the house building market. However, as each key surrender meant a return of a housing unit to the local authority housing stock, depressing the need for new house building in that area, it is not clear whether taken overall the scheme will have been of any real benefit to the building and construction industry. Of course, it cannot be denied that the schemes in question were popular but popularity itself is no proof that the schemes were good.
Another major issue which has attracted a good deal of public comment is the budgetary provision with regard to public service pay. The public service pay bill in 1987 is estimated as running in at £2,840 million. The pay bill in the public sector is determined by two factors, on the one hand wage rates which are largely the subject of negotiations at national level, and on the other hand staff numbers. I am not one of those people who subscribe to the view that Ireland's public service serves only as a burden. That is not true. Our public servants have contributed much to the development of this nation and it is wise from time to time to record that fact. That said, it cannot be denied that our public service and its cost have grown in recent years at an alarming rate. Attempts to restrain that growth have not been successful. The approach being adopted by the Government here is a tough one, but then this is the time for tough measures. There will undoubtedly be murmurs from within the public service about the measures being taken. It is hoped that those flames that may exist will not be fanned by contributions from the far side of the House. In this regard I welcome some of the comments that Deputy Dukes made today.
The Government commitment in the Budget Statement and in subsequent statements to limiting the cost of Ireland's public service is a welcome one. Equally welcome are the direct efforts being made by Ministers and by the Government to create an unprecedented level of mobility within our public service. These measures are taking place in the context of a redistribution of ministerial responsibilities. The mobility which the Government are attempting now to achieve within our public service is commonplace in European public services generally. The public service must be seen as a bank of talent, not locked into immovable bureaucracies but a bank of talent that can be deployed or redeployed by the Government of the day to address the problems of the day as they see fit and appropriate.
A second change brought into effect by the Government on the public service side was the amalgamation of the Departments of Finance and the Public Service. Members will recall that the separation of the personnel and organisation functions from the finance and economic functions of the Department of Finance was recommended as far back as 1969 in a report of the Public Services Organisation Review Group, the Devlin report. The Devlin report considered at that time that the personnel functions were being overshadowed in the Department of Finance by the economic functions of that Department. The Devlin team provided a detailed and very subtle framework in which the economic functions of the Department of Finance and the personal functions could be carried out under the control of a single Minister, the Minister to be designated both as Minister for Finance and in law as Minister for the Public Service.
When the Coalition Government took power in 1973 they put through a Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Act which created a new Department of the Public Service. The Act departed fundamentally from the Devlin blueprint. While it was not observed at the time, the admonition made in the Devlin report that the critical issue of public service numbers, which is fundamentally a budgetary issue, should be left with the Department of Finance was ignored. That view was swept aside in the Amendment Act of 1973. The legislation that was implemented introduced a Department of the Public Service that was responsible for numbers as well as for all personnel issues.
The control of numbers in the public service became an issue for the Department of the Public Service from day one of its creation. The Department of the Public Service created in 1973 became, as a result, inexorably a control agency rather than a creative agency which was what was initially intended. The change in emphasis meant that the creative side of the Department of the Public Service was quickly buried in its identity as a control agency. From its very inception, the Department of the Public Service was locked into a conflict relationship with the other Departments of State. The Department of the Public Service, intended to become initially the motor of public service reform, became from the very day of its creation a major impediment to public service reform. Try as its personnel did to achieve reform, they could not do so. They could not do so because in spite of their best efforts they were viewed by their peers in other Departments as instruments of control rather than as the heralds of change.
I welcome therefore the decision to realign the Departments of Finance and of the Public Service. I welcome, in particular, the manner in which this realignment is taking place. As outlined in the Taoiseach's contribution this morning, the Secretary for the Department of the Public Service will retain responsibility for the personnel and organisational issues within the Department of Finance. The other public service changes made by the Government are equally important and equally welcome. I shall not attempt to deal with all of them here, but would mention a few for the record.
In particular, the creation of the Department of the Marine is to be welcomed. All sides have recognised now that one of the greatest national assets which we have in this country is our offshore resources. It is astonishing that we as an island nation have not identified this fact before. Up to the time of the creation of the Department for the Marine, responsibility for marine affairs lay in up to a dozen different Departments and a dozen different agencies. It is clear that, given that type of organisational framework and confusion, a marine industry could not really prosper.
I welcome also the suggestions being made in this budget and in the statements issued accompanying the budget regarding tourism. The additional emphasis on tourism at departmental level is very welcome. It is very clear that tourism is an area which can grow and prosper. It is also very clear that this is an area where we can create very considerable employment in the years ahead. I come from a county which is abundantly provided with natural resources and which would, obviously, be a haven for tourism, so I look forward, in particular, to the realignment and re-emphasis of tourism in this Department having an effect, not just on the economy of the country as a whole but on the economy of my constituency.
Another issue which is related to the affairs of my constituency and which is welcomed is the creation of an Office for Forestry. We as a nation yet again have overlooked the importance of this resource for far too long. The job potential in the forestry area is phenomenal. As was said this morning, forestry and the industries related to forest products cannot but prosper. We face in Europe a situation where there is and will be over the foreseeable future a shortfall on wood. Clearly an office which is geared towards furthering the development of the forestry industry is very welcome. Forestry is not just an economic benefit but it can also be a benefit in the amenity sense. I would hope that the new office will lay as much emphasis on the amenity aspect of forestry as the Forest and Wildlife Service have done so well over recent years. In this regard I should like to mention something which is dear to all of us in Wicklow and that is the position in Coolattin. We have seen, in the confusion that reigns in regard to the saving of Coolattin Woods, something of the problem of having too many ministries and too many agencies and not giving primacy in one agency to a particular task.
Another welcome change in departmental structures is, the change which is coming about on the science and technology side. In this regard I should like to mention to the House an initiative which was proposed some time ago by NBST and the IDA to the Coalition Government. This is the bio-technology initiative. It is very clear that bio-technology offers at this time the same prospect for growth as the micro-electronic industry offered a decade ago. It is equally clear, when one looks around, that we have in Ireland the resources on which a bio-technology based economy can grow. Sadly, the initiative which was proposed to the Coalition Government some years ago was let die for want of ministerial interest. The creation by the new Government of an office with specific responsibility for science and technology is a very welcome move forward.
When I talk about departmental structures I should like to refer to the emphasis in the budget on decentralisation. I do not need to go on at length about this. The reality is that we possess one of the most extraordinary centralised administrations in the world. It often seems that all virtue and knowledge reside in a very small area of inner Dublin and that for some reason or other we simply cannot adjust ourselves or cannot trust public servants based outside of the inner city area of Dublin to take decisions about the welfare of this State. Huge costs arise from the degree of centralisation we have. I would argue that the degree of administrative centralisation has not only affected the lives and well-being of each and every citizen but has helped to pervert political developments in this nation. I see Deputy Michael Higgins smiling — he knows that to which I refer — there can be no doubt that the political treadmill of constituency work and the excessive degree of concentration on the settlement of constituents' small problems is contributed to in some considerable measure by our level of centralisation.
Of course decentralisation is not just something of importance in administrative or political terms. It has very considerable importance in economic terms. The last Fianna Fáil administration had hoped to take some relatively modest steps with regard to decentralising part of the administration. Sadly the wisdom of the measures proposed by that Fianna Fáil administration was not seen by the incoming Coalition Government who terminated the decentralisation proposals that had been suggested. Therefore, I welcome the indications in the budget and in contributions by Ministers that a decentralisation policy will be reactivated. There is a modest amount laid aside for decentralisation in the budget. Hopefully this constitutes the beginning of a major move in the right direction.
That is the main thrust of what I have to say about the specific provisions of the budget. Other issues have been well covered in the debate. I would say this about the budget. This is an appropriate time to think of our future, to pose the question to this House: what of the future of this nation? This is not a time for wringing of hands. This is not a time for proclaiming our misfortunes. This is a time for us, as a nation, to take control of our destiny. This is a time for leadership.
More than ever before, leadership is what this nation needs in 1987. The budget has shown, at least in my eyes, a very welcome assertion of leadership within Government. The Government were faced with difficult decisions and, in only three and a half weeks in office, showed they had the leadership capacity so obviously lacking for the past couple of years. I contend that the Government, in this budget, have shown not just great leadership but great courage.
Any budget will have elements which are praiseworthy and others we can fault but, when one takes this budget as a whole, difficult and hard as it is, one must contend that it is the right budget for this time. It gives me pleasure to commend it to the House and to congratulate the Ministers and, in particular, the Minister for Finance who introduced it.