The House is now faced with what appears to be another political problem. I am prepared to wait until the Minister of State, Deputy Trevor Sargent, makes his statement to the House. Arising from that, there may well be questions for the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Taoiseach. I would like that we would have the opportunity to discuss that.
Leaders’ Questions.
I would prefer if Deputy Kenny did not raise this. As he knows, there will be a personal statement by the Minister of State later and it would be preferable not to develop the debate on this issue at this point.
I said I was prepared to wait to listen to the statement of the Minister of State.
Questions have been disallowed. However, I do not want to get into the same trouble I did last week.
I want to raise with the Taoiseach the concern about the deterioration in the protection and securing of jobs. Is the Taoiseach aware of how urgent this problem is and of how much an emergency it is for thousands of small businesses? We were told a litany of falsehoods by the Government. We were told the bank guarantee would be the cheapest bail-out possible, that Anglo Irish Bank would be restored as a creditworthy institution, that the Bank of Ireland and AIB would return a dividend to the taxpayer and that NAMA would prevent bank nationalisation while providing a wall of cash for businesses.
From reports from Mazars, UCC and the Central Bank, however, it is obvious thousands of small businesses are going to the wall, even as we speak. No time can be lost as this is far too urgent and serious. The real position is that we have no NAMA, no credit, no dividend and soon we will lose thousands of more jobs. The recent UCC report shows 60% of small businesses have been refused credit. Every Deputy has evidence of small businesses having their overdrafts cut by 50% and having to reduce staff. Credit is drying up before our eyes.
The Taoiseach and his Ministers gave us a litany of falsehoods over the past 18 months since this crisis began. On behalf of the thousands of employers struggling every day to hold on to their employees and attempting to invest in creating new business, I want to know from the Taoiseach the Government's plan to allow credit be extended to businesses as a matter of urgency.
It is agreed by everyone with knowledge of the area, at home and abroad, that the question of the establishment of NAMA is an essential part of any recovery strategy for this country. We await EU state aid agreement on that and we expect it in the coming weeks.
Regarding the question of how we maintain jobs in this economy, we have made it clear through the budgetary strategy that we will continue to make this economy more competitive, we will continue to put our public finances in order and we will continue to assist businesses through the various initiatives we have instigated, such as the stabilisation programme, to ensure that we can bring forward a situation where this country will continue to recover during the second half of this year. That is our strategy and we are determined to do it. That is the direction in which we are going.
Regarding the continuous introduction by Deputy Kenny of every negative and exaggerated opinion he can bring to this House, on every occasion he seeks to suggest at home and abroad that this country does not have such a strategy but it does.
The Taoiseach should look at every street in the country. Every shop is closed.
I fundamentally disagree with the response of the Taoiseach. Fine Gael has proposed a series of positive initiatives that demonstrate that things should not be this way and there is so much that can be done. The Taoiseach told us NAMA would provide a wall of cash and that the investment of €7 billion in the banks would provide a dividend to the taxpayer. The Taoiseach told us Anglo Irish Bank would be restored as a creditworthy lending institution. None of these things has happened and the strategy, after 18 months, is not working.
I understand it is the intention of the Government to borrow a further €6 billion to put into Anglo Irish Bank. The Government will invest €6 billion in what is effectively a dead bank. I ask the Taoiseach to break out of the Fianna Fáil straitjacket he is locked into and adopt the Fine Gael policy in respect of Anglo Irish Bank. It should be broken up into a good bank and a bad bank and the bad element should be allowed to work itself out over a period of years——
At what cost?
——so that bond speculators and investors can take some of the pain and so that the Taoiseach can guarantee that any extra taxpayers' money, borrowed or otherwise, to go into the good element of the bank will be used for the productive purposes of securing jobs, maintaining jobs and expanding businesses. Will the Taoiseach promise that he will not have his Government borrow a further €6 billion to pump into Anglo Irish Bank and that he will break up the bank into a good bank and a bad bank as Fine Gael proposed through Deputy Richard Bruton almost 18 months ago?
The Government is a beaten docket.
On a number of occasions the Minister for Finance has brought forward the strategy we are adopting with regard to Anglo Irish Bank, which is now nationalised, and Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks. Over the coming weeks the comprehensive strategy will be brought to the House for a decision. It will be based on the continuing effort by him to improve and strengthen the banking system because it is necessary for a recovery strategy to have a viable banking system.
What about the €6 billion?
Within the past ten days a Government Senator resigned and had much to tell about the practice of jobbery at the heart of this Government. She told us last Sunday that there is a report sitting on the desk of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley, that is too embarrassing for the senior party in government for the Minister to publish. On Wednesday, we had the two parties in government voting confidence in a Minister of whom, within 24 hours, they sought and obtained the resignation. Apparently there is another Minister of State in trouble today but we will hear more of that later.
Meanwhile, the Tánaiste makes a mess of the jobs situation at Dublin Airport, specifically the former SR Technics operation. Today, former workers of Dell are protesting in Limerick because they cannot get access to the European global fund because of bureaucracy associated with the social welfare system. The banks strategy, which the Government told us would be so secure, is not working. Even the 8% dividend for the taxpayer is not materialising and the Government has ended up taking shares in one of the banks. The value of these shares has already diminished in the short period of time since the shares were taken.
All over the economy, jobs are being lost and businesses are starved of credit. In these times, the country needs a working and functional Government. Instead of that the Government in office is incompetent, dysfunctional and its parties are clearly distrustful of each other. It is tired and now clearly divided. How much longer do the people of this country have to put up with this Government or is the Taoiseach seriously saying to the people that we must ensure two full years of this tired and broken Government he leads?
Will we have to endure two more years of the rhetorical nonsense Deputy Gilmore goes on with and that passes for political comment?
The Taoiseach should get used to it.
This country has a Government that has displayed the capacity to take whatever decisions are necessary to restore international credibility to our public finances, which is clearly not present in the Opposition. This is a Government determined to pursue a policy that will bring recovery, that will see growth returning to the economy and can only do so on the basis of the strategy outlined and the policies we are pursuing. All the bluster, bluff, rhetoric and words coming from the Opposition will not change that fundamental fact.
If the Taoiseach could show the same energy and effort defending the jobs of people losing them in this economy as he is prepared to show defending his job and the jobs of his Ministers, collectively and individually, we would all be much better off and this country would be much better off. It is bad enough that we have unprecedented levels of unemployment, where every day jobs are being lost and businesses are in deep trouble because the so-called solution the Taoiseach came up with to the banking crisis is clearly not working. On top of that, the Government is just not up to it.
People in this country are beginning to lose hope and are beginning to despair because they are experiencing major problems in making ends meet, keeping themselves in employment and keeping the personal and family finances going. They look at the people who are supposed to be running the country and they see they are not doing it. It is quite clear the Taoiseach will spend more time keeping the two parties in government with some kind of veneer of unity and keeping the Government in office rather than getting people in the country who lost employment back to work.
The reality is that Deputy Gilmore is involved in populist policies that do not provide a solution to the serious problems we face. Deputy Gilmore would not have provided any guarantee to the banking system and we would have had a meltdown.
Not a bad one the Taoiseach provided.
The number of jobs lost as a result would have been in the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. Let us cut through the nonsense. As Deputy Gilmore goes around the country suggesting he has a solution to problems by not reducing spending and claiming he will tax those with all the money and ensuring that those who are out of work will get back to work, he has no indication of how he would correct the public finances or provide credibility, internally or externally, to the country. That is what Deputy Gilmore is talking about. The Labour Party MEP, Alan Kelly, suggested the funds made available to Limerick Dell workers were going to the workers personally. That is the populist nonsense Deputy Gilmore is going on about. It will get him up in the opinion polls but will not get any credibility marks when it comes to policy formulation to solve the problems of this country. Deputy Gilmore should continue on with what he is doing; this Government will continue to do what it is doing——
Nothing.
——which is to get this country out of trouble far more quickly than would otherwise be the case.