The Minister for Finance must go at this point because for two years in a row he has allowed spending to grow at ten times the rate at which revenue came in. That is an incredible achievement. In just 22 months spending has grown by almost 47%. This reckless spending binge has burnt out the surplus which workers created. A surplus of €4.8 billion which was available in 2000 has been burnt out in a reckless pursuit of electoral gain. These reserves which had been built up by the workforce were important because they would cushion the inevitable downturn. Now as we endure a downturn they are gone. The consequences of this extraordinary binge are more job losses in vulnerable industries as a direct result of the failure of the Minister for Finance to control public spending. Already in the past 12 months redundancies are up 46%. Jobs are being lost at the rate of 500 per week while the Minister has allowed public finances to go recklessly off the rails and will add to that sorry toll as we approach Christmas and beyond.
The origins of this spending spree go back to the beginning of 2001. With their eyes firmly on the election, Operation Bertie was rolled out, with money being offered as the solution to everything. More was to be spent on everything. It was all about glad-handing the public, finding photo opportunities and taking part in grand openings. It was promised that largesse would be dished out to sports clubs and sports people. It did not matter what the occasion was once there was a good opportunity for photographs. People were recruited to the public service at a rate of 1,000 per month. This was an incredible rate of recruitment into the unreformed same old public service and bureaucracy that was not delivering value. A Minister who complained about the failures of that bureaucracy to deliver value, more than any other Minister in the history of the State, recklessly spent money we did not have. The high point of that came with Stadium Ireland, the grand project which was to cost £283 million. It was soon clear that neither costs nor benefits had been assessed and once it came under independent scrutiny the whole thing collapsed like a house of cards.
We have a vote of no confidence in the Minister for Finance as it was his duty, above all others, to control public spending, to heed the warning signs and to ensure corrective action was taken. The Minister built his political reputation on his dissent when Mr. Haughey in the early 1980s was pursuing a similar tactic of spending recklessly. His courage went when it was demanded and when the tables were turned when he sat at the Cabinet table. The scale of what the Minister has done makes the budgets of Mr. Haughey in the 1980s seem like child's play by comparison. Real spending was at 7%, which was reckless, but the Minister has allowed real spending grow at the rate of 35% in two years, which is an extraordinary level. This was the Minister who prided himself on prudence in public management. His courage completely failed him. Who will suffer as a result of this failure of courage? It will not be the Minister, Deputy McCreevy, and his colleagues in Cabinet but the ordinary people who have already witnessed cutbacks and increased charges for VHI, ESB and attendance at out-patient and casualty departments. For those who want to put a child through college there has been a 70% increase in fees.
Beside the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, is the Minister for prices who said she would hold prices during the euro changeover and would make sure the public was not ripped off. Far from holding down prices the Ministers enthusiastically got in on the act. It was they who led the charges as soon as the election was over to hike up prices on every Government service for which they could charge extra. It is not sur prising that people are cynical, angry and frustrated at what is happening.
The Minister's epitaph will be "Get out and party". The spending spree undertaken to back up their well-woven slogan, "A lot done, more to do", is the legacy of the Minister. The public quickly discovered that this slogan was like buying a car with the mileage clock turned back. When the election was over they discovered the reality. They opened up the bonnet and it was burning oil and the timing belt was gone. All these extra cutbacks which suddenly emerged from nowhere had to be imposed.
No doubt the Minister will say the economic downturn has caused all these difficulties and that spending has increased by 47% because the economy has been sluggish. I have never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. Indeed, the Minister's budget says what would happen if economic growth faltered by 1%. He said it would affect the budget only marginally, by 0.5% in borrowing. However, in the past two years spending has increased three fold, more than anything that could be explained by an economic downturn. Economic downturn is not the explanation of what happened, rather it is a matter of Ministers spending recklessly and beyond what the Dáil approved for them at budget time, with the Minister for Finance presiding over a buckaneering approach to tax and tax manoeuvres that resulted in less than a quarter of the revenue he said would materialise in both years. That is an extraordinary performance. The greatest crime is that the Minister will not accept responsibility. He must face up to his direct responsibility. It was he, despite being Minister for Finance, who allowed his party's political agenda to take priority over the duties of the office which he held. He did nothing to rectify trends until it was far too late. He tolerated Ministers spending far beyond what had been approved by the Dáil. It was he who dispensed with advisers on the basis he did not need them and could proceed on his own hunches. He pursued his hunches with our money and we will have to pay the consequences. Those who asked questions were contemptuously swept aside. Days before the election even the then leader of the Opposition, Deputy Noonan, had this contemptuous letter addressed to him, saying everything in the garden was rosy. It was wrong when it was written and it is wrong now.
Subterfuge was the order of the day throughout the 2002 budget cycle. The Minister produced Estimates showing spending up 8%, which is now running at 19.6%. It was a journalist who highlighted the subterfuge involved in the Estimates at that time. They got past the first stage. When budget day arrived there was a huge emerging deficit of €2.5 billion and there would have to be borrowing. However, that was not the thing to announce in an election year. Instead they dipped into every fund conceivable. They raided the social insurance fund to the tune of €635 million, took €610 million from the euro changeover, brought forward corporation tax and self- employed tax to gain another €700 million and the capital services redemption account was conveniently used to find another €500 million. Miraculously the Minister was free and the huge yawning deficit was gone. He could face the electorate saying he never allowed borrowing and that he made sure every budget he introduced was in credit. It was the greatest phoney action that could be conceived.
The returns for the first quarter showed that income and corporation tax were already €250 million off target and that spending was running way ahead of target. EUROSTAT had ruled out the €610 million that was to paper over the budget. All this was concealed. There was no admission that things were going wrong. The mask had to be kept up because the election was looming.
In April things were even worse. Spending in that month alone was up by 34%. Nothing was uttered. There was deathly silence. Any explanation was enough to paper over what was happening. No hard questions were asked by the Minister for Finance on whom we relied to see that public money was properly used.
Then came the famous letter of 13 May. The Minister solemnly announced that no significant overruns were projected and that no cutbacks whatsoever were being planned, secretly or otherwise. He went on to say that the latest tax returns confirmed the return to growth and that the Government's budgetary projections remained the same as published. However, each month that passed produced more and more evidence of the extent to which this pre-election statement totally misrepresented the true state of affairs. While these words were being uttered memoranda were being produced in the Department of Finance calling for spending to be reined in. Within weeks of the budget the Minister has already on the table €300 million in spending cuts. He let the cat out of the bag that the €300 million shortfall in tax, which was already clear in the first quarter, was admitted to after the election was over. These were the consequences people faced.
Even today we are assured by the Minister that spending will come in on target. That may happen but I am sure it will be done with smoke and mirrors. One thing is sure, the consequences of coming in on target, a fall in the nominal value of current spending in the last two months of this year, compared to the last two months of last year of 6%, will be dire. We will not see a 27% cut in the last two months in spending on health, a 23% cut in spending on the environment, an 11% cut in spending on justice or an 8% cut in spending on education. The Minister will not bring his budget in on target by making sure spending programmes stay within budget. There will be more funny money. Payments under benchmarking, which he budgeted for, will not be made. Reserves and balances will be brought forward and things will look much better than the reality, but that will not convince anyone. Three out of four people believe the Minister misrepresented the facts and misled them to win the election. That is the truth of the matter. The Minister's legacy is runaway spending and crumbling revenue resources.
The Government is now asking the people to believe the Minister can undo the damage he created, that he will ensure that the weak and vulnerable sections of our community will not carry the can in the forthcoming retrenchment, that extra burdens will be fairly shared and that ordinary workers will not have to bear the loss. The Government expects us to believe that the Minister will sensitively separate important social needs from the shrill demands of the loudest and the greediest. I have no confidence he will do so. Nothing in his record suggests that he is the man to do that. It is the weak and the voiceless who have been singled out for the cutbacks announced since the election. It is hard-pressed families that have borne the brunt of the extra charges brought about since the election. It is ordinary workers who are being asked to accept a pay freeze while nothing is done about unscrupulous profiteering. The Minister has celebrated the unfettered pursuit of profit, of rugged individualism, regardless of social price. That is the legacy he has left. We do not believe he will deal sensitively with the difficult problems ahead. He has allowed the systems for ensuring value for money in public spending to grind to a halt and rust.
We now face a budget as a result of which the public will suffer the hangover for the Government's binge. We already see what will happen in the forthcoming budget. It will not be the big bureaucracies, advisers, spin doctors of the Government that will bear the consequences. There will not be serious reform to deliver value for money. It will be the small people who will be asked to pay again. This is a Government which has honed the skill of telling the public what it wants to hear. Now is the time for it to listen to its tracking polls and focus groups. Three out of four people believe that the Minister for Finance conned the public to win the election. He has lost the confidence of the people. He has no credibility in asking them to make sacrifices. He must go.