LEADER'S SPEECH (edited):I COME here tonight to speak to you about the challenges facing the country and about my plan to get Ireland working again.
I want to speak to you about my optimism for our people, about my confidence in the advantages we have and about my belief that with courage, fairness and decisiveness, we can point the way ahead to a new future, a fairer Ireland and a truly just society.
I believe that Ireland can recover fully from this recession inside five years.
This mission can only be achieved if we choose the right options, make the tough but correct decisions, and act decisively and act now.
It’s time for a new Fine Gael government to take Ireland in a new direction.
Fianna Fáil could have, and should have, anticipated the economic crisis. While I recognise that global factors are partly to blame for the downturn, the reality is that mismanagement by our own Government has meant that Ireland is suffering much more than other countries.
Make no mistake about this – Fianna Fáil are responsible for the state of our domestic woes.
When our economy was strong, they squandered your money on wasteful projects, like e-voting machines, rather than investing in improving vital public services like schools and healthcare.
Thankfully, their days in government are numbered.
Fine Gael’s alternative involves radical reform to eliminate wasteful spending and reduce bureaucracy.
Let me be straight – no country has ever taxed its way back to recovery. The problem with the public finances cannot be fixed by tax increases and crude spending cuts alone. As more and more people lose their jobs, the hole in the public finances gets bigger and bigger. The cornerstone of Fine Gael’s plan for economic renewal is the creation and protection of jobs for our people.
That will be our number one priority in government.
Fine Gael has set the agenda all along. We were right on benchmarking; we were right on the scrapping of the national pay deal; we were right on bank recapitalisation and on the need for a new budget. And we’re right to focus on jobs now.
I believe that we can meet the challenge ahead and revive our country by setting out clear targets and then achieving them with determination.
These are our targets:
1. Create 100,000 new jobs by the end of 2013;
2. Return the public finances to stability by 2012 – without increasing the standard and current top rates of income tax;
3. Deliver a radical plan for renewable energy – pumped storage, wind, wave and biomass – that will meet a quarter of our energy needs by 2015, and make us net exporters of energy within 10 years;
4. Transform our education system so that 9 out of 10 children complete secondary school by 2013 and two thirds go onto third level;
5. Restore Ireland to the top five most competitive countries in the world within three years.
These targets are all achievable if driven by a new Fine Gael government with new ideas and the energy and the commitment to do the job.
We need free access to third-level colleges. Fine Gael will not deny any family the opportunity to send a son or daughter to college because of financial pressures. The gates to dreams and potential will remain open. We will not support the reintroduction of third-level fees and will abolish the current registration fee system.
Instead, when they start to work and earn, graduates will make a fair contribution to the cost of their course over a five- to 10-year period. This will provide a new €500 million annual fund for which third-level colleges will compete – based on the quality of the courses that they offer and the scale of their reform.
That future for many is stressful and uncertain. Last week I met a couple whose child has special needs. They have mortgaged their home twice. Nobody knows a child better than its mother. This is what the child’s mother said to me: “We’ve always paid our taxes, and yet we’ve had to fight the State every day of our child’s life to get any kind of services. We’ve a personal overdraft for which we’re being charged 20 per cent interest by a bank being bailed out by our taxes.
“Do you understand how angry I am when I read of people receiving millions of euro despite disgraceful behaviour within banks?”
Well, I understand that anger. I meet people like that mother every week. Victims of appalling and scandalous State neglect and banking greed. That’s why Fine Gael demands a radical shake-up of Irish banking that will see new people leading the banks and those responsible for outrageous abuses severely punished.
The message has to go out, both at home and abroad, that these practices will not be tolerated by the Irish people.
Last week, I met a small retailer in Kildare who, because she was refused a loan of just €3,000 for cashflow, is now forced to lay off staff. Countless other businesses are similarly starved of credit.
The banks must play their part in supporting employment because, if they don’t, the economy will continue to decline.
That decline can only be reversed by job creation. This is why Fine Gael published our jobs plan, Rebuilding Ireland. This plan, which will create 100,000 jobs within four years, will be an investment in the future and will be paid back in time.
The Fine Gael plan is not about jobs for the boys, but jobs for the people. To help stimulate new jobs, Fine Gael will abolish employer’s PRSI for every new job created. Along with creating these new jobs, we must also work to retain existing jobs. That’s why last week we proposed reducing the lower rate of VAT to 10 per cent – a move that will support labour-intensive sectors like tourism and construction. That’s why we will slash the red tape and bureaucracy that is strangling Irish business. That’s why we will force down Government- controlled prices like energy and rates.
Achieving national recovery requires difficult decisions on tax and spending. That is why politicians must lead by example. Fine Gael has taken the lead in demanding political reform that will see an end to ministerial pensions for serving TDs, a reduction in the number of Dáil committees and the abolition of additional payments for committee work.
One of my first acts as taoiseach will be to reduce the number of junior ministers from 20 down to 12. We don’t need 20 junior ministers – and the country can’t afford them.
Equally the country cannot afford the billions wasted in a health system that was never reformed in any fundamental way.
My message tonight is simple. Despite the best efforts of nurses and doctors and all those working on the front-line, our health system is broken. And this Government has no idea how to fix it.
The health service needs radical change. Fine Gael will deliver that change. We will deliver a health system that is concerned solely with people’s medical needs, and not with the money in their pocket.
We will end the two-tier system.
We have devised a plan based on best practice in the Netherlands and Canada. It will eliminate trolleys in A&E, slash waiting lists and end the current health divide that denies fair treatment to the less well-off in our society.
Our goal is clear: To give Ireland a world-class health service where everyone is treated fairly, regardless of income, and where the patient is central to that service.
Whatever decisions have to be made next Tuesday in these difficult times, they must not destroy the spirit of communities and the voluntary care provided for the voiceless, the defenceless, the aged and the intellectually challenged.
Chuir sé isteach orm go mór gur dúnmharú triúr sa Tuaisceart le deanaí. Ar mo mholadh féin, ghlac Dáil Éireann le rún comhbhrón agus bhí tacaíocht ó chuile pháirti i gcoinne an feall sin. Chuir an Dáil amach teachtaireacht láidir don Teach Bán, do mhuintir na hEorpa agus don domhain ar fad nach glacann muintir na hÉireann, Tuaisceart agus Deisceart, leis an eacht úfásach sin. Caithfear deireadh a chur le seo laithreach. D’oibrigh an iomairce daoine ró dian agus ró fhada chun go ligfear go dtosnodh an troid sin arís. Leanfaimid ar aghaidh le síocháin seasamach as seo amach.
It was out of the need for peace that the European Union was born. Europe has been vital to Ireland’s development as a respected and influential member of the international community.
I want a reformed, effective, and democratic Europe to be a key driver of economic recovery and future prosperity. This Europe must be given the architecture to serve a population of 500 million people.
That’s why Fine Gael has and will continue to support the reforms in the Lisbon Treaty and we will lead the campaign for its approval by the Irish people later in the year.
In the meantime, the people will vote on June 5th to elect Ireland’s members of the European Parliament. It is more important than ever that we elect strong and effective MEPs. Fine Gael’s membership of the largest political family, the European People’s Party, gives our MEPs a unique place of influence when the important decisions are taken.
I make no pretence and no promise that we can instantly fix the problems we inherit. But I do promise that we will free the potential that, at the start of the last century, enabled our people to come through oppression and recession to build a great democracy.
As the proud father of three young children my priority is securing the future of all of our children. But to achieve this, we need courageous, confident, clear leadership from a Fine Gael government that truly cares.
Fianna Fáil have lost the capacity to lead, and more importantly, they have lost touch with the people and the people have lost trust in them. And they know it.
When I took on the leadership of Fine Gael, the scale of the challenge was huge. Many said that the situation was hopeless, but I’ve worked hard, built solid foundations, picked a strong team and encouraged their creativity so that we could recover and grow. And we have.
Now I want to do the same for Ireland. Last year, across the Atlantic Ocean, a young man began to live and achieve his dreams for his country.
The simplicity of his slogan, “Yes we can”, captured the imagination of the world. Let nobody doubt my resolve as leader of this great party to achieve my ambition for our country.
A fair and just society, a strong and healthy economy and a rewarding and peaceful future for all.
My call to the Irish people is different. It’s not just “Yes we can”, but “Yes we will”.
Together, yes we will.