Before I concluded last night I was talking about the decline in living standards, the growing pressure under which the middle income group find themselves, the number of repossessions by building societies, the taxation burden and emigration among that group. We hear many speeches about unemployment generally but I would put it to the House that unemployment among the middle income group — the so-called executive class — is quite frightening. Behind the lace curtains in modern suburbia there is a very difficult situation of despair and growing indebtedness to the banks. That is not often said in this House but it is very important because many a person is experiencing these difficulties although on paper he appears to be doing nicely. He might appear to have a reasonable salary, a tax free allowance, a car, a house and so on. I have come in contact with the reality and misery. There is as much, if not more, poverty and depression among the salaried classes as there is among any other section of the community. That is not often realised or said. It is important to put it on the record of this House.
I said last night that the central feature of Building on Reality was the attainment of 5 per cent of GNP as the current budget deficit. It is quite clear now that not alone will we not totally bridge the current budget deficit but we will be somewhat off that 5 per cent. According to my calculations it will be about £800 million. I asked the Minister last night where we might find that £800 million to bring the current budget deficit back to the 5 per cent envisaged in the plan. I spoke also about the national debt of £20 billion compared to a figure of £8 billion or £9 billion a few years ago and the fact that the current budget deficit represents the highest percentage of GNP of any industrial country.
One cannot judge a Government on political speeches, glossy brochures or television appearances. On can only do so by considering what was laid out and predicted in the plan and dispassionately comparing that to what has happened in the period outlined. That is the only way I would attempt to criticise this Government. I do not criticise them in a deeply political way but simply from sadness that we have not managed between us to achieve some of the targets in the plan. The 5 per cent target is gone. The unemployment target is off by over 15,000. It was predicted that manufacturing employment would increase but it has actually gone down. The Taoiseach told me in reply to a parliamentary question that unemployment is now 21 per cent. The current deficit and the borrowing situation are way out of line with the plan. All I can do is compare what the Government said they would do with what they actually did and point to a failure of policy.
I also spoke last night about the repatriation of profits from this country. It would appear that about £1 billion in profits made by companies are being repatriated. I asked the Minister for Finance to tell the House about the success or otherwise of the scheme to attract money from multinationals into Government stock. I would dearly like to know how many of them have bought Government stock rather than repatriate their profits. I suggested that most of these companies would not take up this scheme because if they have a choice between reinvesting their money in their own company or putting it on deposit in one of their own banks abroad or, on the other hand, lending it to the Irish Government, they will not choose the latter option. I am keen to know exactly how the scheme has been working.
I have taken apart in my contribution the detailed figures laid out in the plan and compared them with the figures available today. Any objective person must agree that the assumptions underlying the national plan were totally and utterly false and the plan should be withdrawn. The figures emerging daily in reply to questions from this side of the House show that the plan is no longer operational and has no relevance to where we go from here.
I do not want to be entirely negative because that is probably too easy a way out. There are very positive things that I have welcomed. I have welcomed the Government's moves on PRSI and in the grants area. They will do some good.
We must do more in the area of curtailing State involvement. This is why I so strongly opposed setting up the National Development Corporation as just another layer of State involvement in the economy. I was interested in the Minister's reactions to my statement in his speech. Do we not realise that the State is spending £2 out of every £3 spent? The level of State involvement in the economy is unsustainable. In the light of this fact, is it not a move in the wrong direction to establish a National Development Corporation on top of the existing layers of government? With the State being so central in the economy, how is it possible for the private sector to breathe?
I hold very strongly the view that the State does not create employment. It creates the conditions around which the rest of us will create employment. It is that philosophy which is missing from this Government's approach to the economy. They seem to think that the NDC is an adequate response to the unemployment problem. I suggest that it is not an adequate response. I suggest instead that an adequate response would be the curtailing of State involvement, deliberate moves to create the atmosphere wherein everybody else could create jobs, an improvement in the venture capital scheme by taking off the gloves and the red tape, a greater commitment to exporting and the removal of our paranoia in this regard, a concentration on small business rather than the large multinationals. Generally we must take the kind of steps which will enable the State to create the environment and conditions in which the Irish people will solve the problems. Until we get that philosophy we will not tackle the crisis in this economy.