Yesterday, we saw the introduction of a budget, the need for which the Government did not want to recognise for a long time. It amounts to one of the biggest smash-and-grab raids on middle income families for years.

Hear, hear.

This budget will puncture the confidence of thousands of Irish families and result in the demise of thousands of small retail businesses because the Government took the easy option. There is no reform of the HSE, no reform of FÁS, no jobs plan and no strategy to get people back to work. All we have is an indication that close to 500,000 people will be out of work next year. The Government has taken the soft option and looked for the easy targets. We now know the Government is to take almost €100 per week from middle income families, who do not sit around the table at social partnership meetings and face the Taoiseach down. These are the voiceless people who are now being put to the wall because of the way the Government has gone about dealing with this budget.

We, in this party, stepped up to the mark to support the bank guarantee scheme. At that time, I had a call from the Minister for Finance at ten past seven in the morning asking me about my attitude towards the bank guarantee, and I said we needed a banking system because it was the lifeblood of commerce in this country. The Taoiseach told us there was no run on Anglo Irish Bank. He told us there was no impropriety in the banking system. He told us he would deal with the issue of bank bonuses and high pay. These statements were not true. After all the consideration the Cabinet has given to this budget, we now know it is going to force middle income families to pay for its mistakes. What will the banks be made to pay for their mistakes? Can the Taoiseach tell us how much he intends to take from the taxpayer to pay banks for dodgy developer debts, which we are now told amount to €90 billion?

Hear, hear.

They are safeguarding the fat cats.

I reject the contention by Deputy Kenny that the Government has chosen the soft option. All taxpayers are facing difficulties as a result of the supplementary budget we had to introduce yesterday, and we are cognisant of that. At the same time, however, there is a recognition in the country that these are necessary steps. Bringing order back to our public finances is a absolute prerequisite for economic recovery and I hope people will accept that as the motivation of the Government in coming forward with these proposals.

Further, with regard to Deputy Kenny's mention of soft options, gross expenditure savings in 2009 under this supplementary budget will amount to €1.46 billion in 2009 and €1.8 billion in a full year. That is in addition to savings of €1.8 billion announced by the Government in February and savings and efficiencies of €1 billion announced in July of last year.

They did not begin saving in time.

In total, those savings amount to €4.8 billion in the full year. Quite apart from the tax increases, there were also significant expenditure savings which had to be factored into the budgetary equation.

With regard to the Deputy's second point, a policy announcement was made by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, yesterday about how we can restore confidence in the economy and, in particular, protect jobs by quickly restoring a functioning banking system to provide sufficient credit for the demands of businesses as they deal with the difficulties of the recession this year and next. That policy announcement will allow much work to take place. Some work has already been undertaken in terms of due diligence with regard to the loan books of the covered institutions, but more work remains to be done in preparing legislation and so on. The National Treasury Management Agency will this afternoon outline how this will have a positive impact on Ireland's image in debt markets. What we intend to do is to engage in a process of work to isolate the problems that have been identified in the banking system and park them in the asset management agency, which will be the counter-party instead of the bank, although obviously the same obligations to repay will apply. The purpose of this is to ensure the banks themselves can access sufficient funds to meet the credit demands of the economy.