asked the Taoiseach if the Government accept the recommendations of NESC Report No. 75 "Economic and Social Policy 1983".

The Government in their statement issued on 12 January on NESC Report No. 75 welcomed the report as a valuable and timely contribution to their consideration of policy options in the run-up to the 1984 budget. The Government will, as indicated in that statement, consider the many specific recommendations made in the report in framing the forthcoming budget and in deciding the shape and thrust of the economic and social strategy, which will be contained in the Government's medium-term plan now in preparation.

The Taoiseach is aware that the report specifically states that the provision of employment for the country's rising labour force must be a priority objective. Does the Taoiseach accept that and will that be the policy in the forthcoming budget? If so, does the Taoiseach now recognise that he is abandoning what he said here during the course of last year and that the Government are pursuing policies which are diametrically opposed to the interests of employment?

We cannot anticipate the budget.

The budget will be — as is everything else — informed by our concern to reduce unemployment as rapidly as possible. Every action we have taken has been directed towards that. Such action as has been taken in the financial sphere, restrictive in character, forced on us by the profligacy of the previous Government, and having adverse effects, is something which was necessary in order to safeguard the finances of the State, to ensure its solvency and to ensure our capacity to continue to borrow the large sums which are necessary in order to finance investment in this country.

Is the Taoiseach aware that in the Central Bank Report to which I have referred already it is stated:

The need for adjustment in the public finances should be seen as the inevitable outcome of fiscal policy during the 1970s ...

I would like to point out to the Taoiseach that the only time I had any direct responsibility for the finances of this country was in December 1979. The Central Bank nails the lie and points directly to the Coalition Government of the 1970s as being responsible for everything.

Hear, hear.

Order, the Taoiseach.

The Deputy should read the record.

In reply to the Deputy I should like to ask him if he rejects the principle of collective responsibility. The Deputy was a member of the Government in 1977 with full collective responsibility for the disastrous decisions taken. If he wished to repudiate them he should have done so then and had the guts to resign.

Is the Taoiseach aware that the report of the council which we are discussing — the ERSI Report and not the report of the Central Bank which pins responsibility for the finances of 1977 on the Coalition Government — states that productive public capital expenditure rigorously evaluated in terms of future returns should receive priority over current public expenditure? Will the Taoiseach admit that that was not the policy pursued by his Government last year? Can we now have a reversal of those disastrous economic and financial policies which caused unemployment to rise by 28,000 during his term of office?

The Deputy was arguing against that point before Christmas.

Policy is related to such productive investment as set out there, determined by rigorous criteria to be worthwhile investment yielding a return. In fact, the whole policy in regard to capital investment of the Government is influenced by that consideration and that is the priority.