One of the greatest privileges and honours in any democracy is the privilege of being elected to one's national Parliament. It is an honour every Member of the House has had, sometimes on successive occasions. It is an honour and a privilege shared today by Deputies Lee and O'Sullivan who have joined the House. Each of us as a Member of Dáil Éireann is elected to represent our constituents. It does not always mean that we must follow every trend in public opinion. There are occasions when we must take positions as legislators which are not always the popular positions. However, I believe we have a duty as Members of the House to reflect generally the will and wish of the people.
Like Deputy Kenny I have been here for a number of motions of confidence. These are proposed from time to time when a Government or its members misbehave or when there is some major political event. One thing that has always characterised any motion of confidence in my time here has been the belief, or lack of belief as the case may be, on both sides of the House that the Government enjoyed the confidence of the public and that whatever decision might be made here, if it were put to the test outside, the Government would win. That has always been the Government's principled defence. However, that defence does not apply today. The one thing we know as we debate the motion of confidence is that if the Government were to take its case to the people today, it would be defeated. The motion of confidence in Dáil Éireann comes days after the people have voted no confidence in the Government.
When the Taoiseach calls on the members of the Government parties and the independents who support the Government to vote confidence in it, he is asking them to do something which flies in the face of what the people seek. The Taoiseach stated that this is the constitutional position. It may indeed be a very literal reading of the Constitution, but I do not believe that it is in the spirit of the Constitution, which does not provide for fixed term elections of the Dáil. It provides for a dissolution which a Taoiseach may exercise from time to time and he may seek a dissolution of the Dáil in any range of circumstances. I believe this is one of the circumstances anticipated by those who framed our Constitution. Where a Government had lost the confidence of the people and where there is no longer a sufficient mandate or authority from the people for the Government to continue, then the honourable thing for the head of the Government to do in such circumstances is to resign, seek a dissolution of the Dáil and ask the people whether that Government or combination of parties should continue or be replaced.
The Taoiseach stated in his defence that the reason the people voted no confidence in the Government last Friday is because it made hard choices. That is not the case. The reason the people voted is that the Government made the wrong choices over a period and, I suggest, provided bad leadership.
Since the Taoiseach had held office he has led the defeat of the referendum on the Lisbon treaty, although he had the support of the two main Opposition parties. He introduced a blanket guarantee for the banking system last September, a bad decision which has exposed the taxpayer to continued difficulties in the years ahead. Instead of dealing fairly with the problems in the public finances, he introduced taxes and, instead of being honest with people, called them income levies. These levies hit people on lower incomes most severely. The Taoiseach targeted disadvantaged and special needs children for education cuts. He abolished grants for children at risk of leaving school early and the grants available for Traveller children. He axed special needs classes for children with learning disabilities. He took away the book grant from disadvantaged children and increased class sizes.
The Taoiseach decided not to proceed with the cervical cancer vaccine which would have cost only €16 million. He scrapped medical cards for the over 70s, only to be forced to reintroduce them for some over 70s. He introduced an increase in VAT which has decimated trade and which has caused significant problems for business. Although not yet established in legislation, he proposes to establish NAMA or an bord bail-out, instead of dealing more effectively with the banking system. He got rid of the Christmas bonus, something valued by old age pensioners. I could go on.
It is not simply that the Taoiseach made the wrong choices over the course of the past year. On every issue he acted too late. This time last year the Opposition parties told him there was an economic problem. We told him people were losing their jobs, that businesses were having difficulty getting credit from the banks and he would not listen. Yet, the Taoiseach denied that there was an economic problem. As a result and because he delayed dealing with it he made the problem worse.
The reason people have no confidence in the Taoiseach is not simply because of the decisions made in the course of the past year, or that he did not see the problems when they were staring everyone else in the face, it is because the Taoiseach and the Government got us into the hole in the first place. It was the policies pursued by the Fianna Fáil Governments, especially that presided over by the Taoiseach in his capacity as Minister for Finance at the time, which have added to the effects of the global economic downturn, from which we would have been affected in any event, and which have made the problem worse in this country. It was the way in which the Taoiseach and his predecessor in the Department of Finance, Mr. McCreevy, operated. Instead of dealing with the downturn in export activity, he blew additional air into the property bubble and created the unsustainable level of construction activity. The then Government tax incentivised it and continued to inflate the bubble instead of letting it down slowly. This is what has created and given rise to the economic difficulties in which the country finds itself today.
The Taoiseach in his defence points at us and argues that there are differences in policy between Fine Gael and the Labour Party. That is the case and we will honestly address those differences. However, the real problem is not the policy differences on the Opposition benches but that Government policy continues to change from month to month and sometimes from week to week.
As we debate the motion we must reflect the wishes of the people. While campaigning during the local elections, European elections and the bye-elections, I discovered and found very heartening a very strong sense of determination among people that we can get through the recession. There was a strong sense from business people about their difficulties, such as customers not coming through the door, the difficulties in getting credit from the banks, the way in which they would like to keep their employees, but also their determination to stay in business, survive the recession and to get to the other side. The second consideration is the concern of people right across the country not just for themselves in immediate terms, but also for their children and the future of this country. Over and over again, I heard people saying: "We don't mind paying a bit extra, provided we know where it is going and provided we know what is being done with it." They say they are not prepared to accept that they have to pay disproportionately or unfairly or that in the case of those who were the great beneficiaries of the Celtic tiger years — those who benefited from the property speculation that took place — no action is being taken to get them to make their contribution now. There is a will among people to put their shoulder to the wheel, to move the country forward and restore the economy, to recover our fortunes and to get confidence back in the country again. There is also a wish among people that the international respect, which this country, our financial institutions and our economy once had, would be restored. However, in order for that to happen, there has to be a fresh start and that begins with a change of Government. In my view, the Taoiseach is doing a great disservice to the country by insisting on staying in office in circumstances where the people of the country want him out of office and where the country needs a new Government with a fresh mandate and a fresh start.
We all understand that difficult decisions have to be made in the years ahead and there is work to be done. For example, we have to get our banks operating again and get credit moving to business. The Taoiseach's Government and my party have differing views on this and those differing views go back to the night of 30 September 2008 when he brought in the bank guarantee scheme. We regarded this as the wrong way to go. Our view was that this was providing a blanket, unconditional safety net for the banks at the expense of the taxpayer and, as time has progressed, we have been proven right. The Taoiseach was the person who came into the House that night and told us we were wrong. He told us that if the guarantee scheme was introduced it would not cost the taxpayer anything, that there would not have to be any money put into the banks. He was wrong on that point because he has ended up repeatedly having to put forward money which, frankly, the country does not have in order to recapitalise banks. This is just an endless continuation of money being put forward when the guarantee scheme is in place and the taxpayer has to bear liability for the entire banking system.
There is a better way, which is the way the Labour Party has argued and which is supported. The Taoiseach referred today to the commentators who have commented favourably on the Government's actions with regard to the economy. A total of 20 leading economists said that the approach recommended by the Labour Party is the right action with regard to the banks, which is their temporary nationalisation and the setting up of a banking commission, and the establishment of a national investment bank which would provide the funding needed for infrastructure. That is a difference between us. There is also the urgent need to get people back to work and to protect existing employment.
In my view, the most significant figure to emerge from last Friday was not the number of votes cast for whatever party or the number of transfers that elected people late at night, but that we now have more than 400,000 people out of work in this country, and that number is rising. This gives rise to two actions we need to take. First, we need to stop the haemorrhage of jobs and get credit moving again to business and restore confidence in business so that employment can be created. Second, we have to do something for the people who are losing their jobs. There has been a concentration in the entire dialogue about the economic difficulties of the country, the public finances and the billions for banks and so on, but we should instead talk about the needs of people, particularly those who have lost their jobs. This is the reason the Labour Party has been arguing for some new active labour market measures which would provide some assistance to those people. We have suggested that the opportunity of the recession should be used to provide people with the training and education they need in order to be better able to take up employment opportunities and to start businesses as the economy recovers.
The Taoiseach has taken up some of those ideas in name. I refer to our idea of an earn and learn scheme, but the Taoiseach only provided 277 places. The Labour Party suggested a graduate placement scheme which the Taoiseach nominally adopted, but only about 2,000 places are being provided. The need is much greater than that and it would be a better use of public money to have people back in education and training, gaining experience in their relevant professions, rather than idle and on the dole. Those are practical things that can be done. A third action which needs to be taken is to have a fresh look at the national development plan and to reprioritise it in a way that brings forward the projects which will generate more employment. The Labour Party has suggested that the programmes of school and hospital building and of much-needed community facilities could be accelerated, because this is an investment in our future and a way of getting people back to work in the short term. If the Government can bring money forward to recapitalise the banks, then money can be brought forward to recapitalise the country, create employment and get the economy moving again and deal with people's real needs.
We have talked about reforming the public service. There has been a lot of abuse of the public service over the past year. Some of it has been very vulgar abuse directed at public servants who do good work and are decent people who are paid modest rates. This party believes in the delivery of good public services. We believe there are certain things that are best provided by public provision, such as education and health, the public infrastructure. However, we also believe that we can get better value for money from the entire public services and this can be done by reforming the way they are being delivered and the way in which they are structured.
The Labour Party has also argued that we should learn from what happened in this country such as the culture of crony capitalism and — with respect — over which the Taoiseach's party has presided for more than a decade. We should at least learn the lessons from what has happened. I refer to what happened in the banks and to the culture of "You sit on my board and I will sit on your board and somebody else will chair somebody else's board". This is an old boys' network which operates hand in glove with each other and where people know what is moving and what is shaking and are able to take advantage of it. That day is over, and it has to go. This is the reason the Labour Party has proposed a range of reforms of corporate governance so that what has happened with our banks and to our economy over the past year or more will never happen again.
For all this to come to pass, we need political change. We have a Government that has been in office for 12 years now with people who have been used to leaving the country on autopilot, who have been used to a culture where no matter what problem arose, there was always money that could be thrown at it and there was always another board or body that could be established to deal with it. A Government of that kind is not in a position to take the kind of decisions needed to grab the country by the scruff of the neck and deal with the problems the country has to address, to provide the kind of leadership to decent people all over the country who want to make a fresh start, who have a sense of patriotism and want a better future for their children, not a return to the emigrant boat.
Deputy Kenny talked about some of the people he met during the course of the election campaign. I want to tell the Taoiseach about a man I met in a shopping centre. He told me he was a building worker and had worked on building sites all his life. He was in his mid-50s and did not believe he would work again but that was not his problem. He had educated two sons and had put them through college. They were now engineers and his problem was that they would have to face the emigrant plane, as his brothers and sisters had to do in the 1950s and 1960s. He could not understand why, when he had educated his children and made the sacrifices that enabled them to become professionals, they must now face the same economic fate that generations before them had to face. He wants a future here for his children. They want a future here. That kind of future can only come when this country recovers its confidence, when we have got through the difficult times and have recovered the respect and trust we had abroad. That can only come with a change of political leadership here. The only people who can determine that are the people of the country.
We are elected to represent the people. Each Deputy in the House has a choice to make tomorrow. Even if in our hearts we believe there is confidence among the people in this Government, we are required to do more than come into the House, observe a party whip and vote for self-preservation as I believe some Members of the Government parties will do tomorrow. Every Member of this House has a duty to reflect and respect the will and wishes of the people, which, as demonstrated last Friday in ballot papers and in repeated opinion polls, now demands that the Taoiseach's Government should stand down, make way, hold an election and let the people decide who should run our affairs for the years ahead.
