Order, please. Deputy Wallace has the floor.

The Government has boasted of late about the economic recovery. The media have acted as cheerleaders. For whom is the recovery? I attended a public meeting in Wexford on Tuesday. Many of those who attended wondered why the recovery had not touched their lives. There was much more a sense of fear than of recovery.

They are paying the Deputy's taxes.

The idea that the recovery is for everybody is not true for the majority of the people in this country. There is no doubt that there has been a recovery for some, probably about 20% of the population. People are genuinely afraid that they will not be able to pay for water. The Taoiseach's jobs-for-the-boys debacle has added to their disillusionment, making Fine Gael look as grubby as Fianna Fáil.

"Grubby" is not a word I would use too often.

Fine Gael has achieved an incredible feat by making Fianna Fáil look good through this episode.

On topic, please, Deputy.

No problem. A man who was angry about the McNulty affair telephoned me on Tuesday and told me about an appointment the Taoiseach had made, namely that of his good friend Michael McGarry to Sustainable Energy Ireland. Politics in Ireland has not changed. The people voted for change in 2011 but they did not get it; they got more of the same. Only last July the Tánaiste said this Government would embark on a new cycle of political reform to restore trust in our institutions and public life. That trust is in tatters. Will the Tánaiste do the country a service and pull the plug on the coalition to give the people an opportunity to pass judgment?

The Deputy stated that there had been some recovery but it had not been felt by everybody. Yesterday we had the best figures for the live register and people returning to work for more than five and a half years. We still have a long way to go, but unemployment has fallen to its lowest level in five and a half years and now stands at 11.1%. I spoke to people yesterday from the Construction Industry Federation, CIF, on which the Deputy is an acknowledged expert. In Grangegorman a huge number of people are now at work on what had become a derelict site in the centre of Dublin, which is now being transformed by some of the best building work in Europe. I discussed with the representatives of the CIF the issue of apprenticeships - something about which the Deputy has spoken to me on several occasions, when he demonstrated his extensive knowledge of the subject - and trainees getting back to work. That is all positive.

The Labour Parliamentary Party meeting took place in Wexford, during which I took the opportunity to walk around Wexford and open the Intreo office. I do not know whether the Deputy knows that there has been a significant fall in the number of people in Wexford who are unemployed and an increase in the number of people at work. Is it as high as we would like? No, it is not. We have a way to go over the next four or five years to get our country to full employment. We will have a budget in two weeks' time in which, for the first time since we inherited from the former Fianna Fáil Government an economy, a country and a society in meltdown, we will reach the level of deficit that is required. We now have 75,000 more people at work, compared to the 350,000 jobs the country lost in the three years following the bank guarantee. I agree that the country has a long way to go to put everybody who wants to work back to work. Approximately 80,000 people who were employed in construction, as the Deputy knows, are on the live register. My objective is to get as many of them as possible back to work by building up the construction sector from its current level of 6.5% to double that, which would be the normal level of construction activity in a country such as ours, in order to build homes for families who need them.

The Deputy is correct; these are the important things for people in Ireland. It is also important that the system of governance that we have should be as good as we can make it. In regard to the public sector, which is run by State boards, we need to make sure we have the best people we can, from a variety of backgrounds and circumstances and with a variety of skills, on those boards. That is what the Taoiseach has now agreed and confirmed to me, as leader of the Labour Party, which is a positive step forward for the country. I very much welcome the support of the Taoiseach and both parties in government for that. It will help to rebuild this country.

On the issue of jobs, there are 45,000 people on short-term schemes and 130,000 on part-time schemes. In total, there are more than 500,000 people looking for a full-time job in the State. The figures are being helped, as the Tánaiste well knows, by the huge emigration of young people. What we have seen in the last few years has been a great erosion of public services. There is no denying it. There has been a race to the bottom in terms of social protection. Many of the jobs the Government created are on minimum wage with no contracts. Things are not as they were and Labour has been part of it.

It surprises me that Labour has gone along with so much of the neo-liberal, right-wing philosophy of Fine Gael. Neo-liberalism has been the order of the day. It surprises me that the Tánaiste is okay with that. Ireland must take a different direction. We have put the interests of large financial institutions and big business before those of the citizens. That is the fact. It should not be that way, as the Tánaiste knows. A majority of the people are sick to the back teeth of how things have developed. They are sick to the back teeth of the cronyism that has surfaced in the last couple of weeks. I am surprised that so many are surprised by it, but people are angry at what they are witnessing. The people would like Enda's head on a plate and the Tánaiste can deliver it. There is huge anger on the street. Is the Labour Party okay with that?

In relation to the Deputy's comments on social protection, the ESRI produced a report a short time ago by Professor John FitzGerald and others. The professor was widely interviewed in the media and he pointed out that the level of income inequality in Ireland had decreased since the onset of the economic-----

Rubbish.

Sorry, but if I gave figures or impressions of my own, the Deputy would not be inclined to believe them. I went to a jobs fair on Monday in Ballsbridge at which large numbers of businesses were recruiting. While we have not got to the stage of employment we want, it is a great deal better than where we were. Professor John FitzGerald and the ESRI, which is an independent research organisation, said as a matter of fact that income inequality in Ireland has decreased since the recession.

They also said that budgets were regressive for three years.

Rubbish.

The ESRI has commended the Government for maintaining core social welfare payments and benefits.

Inequality has increased.

The Tánaiste to reply.

We have done that in contrast to other countries which have experienced banking crises and collapses. We have done that as a society. As the country recovers, I hope to see the dividend from progress spreading out in particular to people on middle and low incomes and to retired people and pensioners.

I am surprised the Tánaiste believes that guff.

I made that very clear in terms of my objective. In terms of the banking crisis which drove the country to such a state, preceded by a crazy bubble which never made sense, which the Deputies opposite know all about, we have achieved a reduction of €10 billion in the costs of the banking debt and an overall reduction of €40 billion in relation to the debt and contingent liabilities of the country.

The Tánaiste still does not get it.

The national debt is €200 billion. That is progress.

The country has progressed very significantly in terms of its total exposure to banking debt from the situation we inherited.

The Government is happy to let €25 billion fall on the shoulders of Irish people. It is gutless.

Could we hear the answer? I thank the Tánaiste.

We now have so many people going back to work.