Fine Gael spokesman on Finance, Deputy George Lee gives readers of The Sligo Champion his views on Brian Lenihan's Budget.

Richard Bruton summed it up well; Brian Lenihan's "the worst is over" comment about the Budget resembled that day when George W. Bush landed on an aircraft carrier and declared "mission accomplished" in Iraq.

Well, it wasn't mission accomplished for George W. Bush and it regrettably isn't the case that the worst is over here. In fact, almost in the next sentence Minister Lenihan said that the economy would shrink again next year.

Fragile as our prospects are, yet again, we got a Budget from Fianna Fail and the Greens that won't jolt our economy out of the doldrums. Budget 2010 is not fair, not clever, and is not going to get the economy or the country back to work.

This Budget should have been about jobs, and about hope for the future. In fact, the Budget slashes capital spending, has no coherent jobs strategy, no relief for businesses facing high costs, and makes no allowance for the expected €6 billion recapitalisation of Anglo Irish Bank next year. That failed bank is a lost cause and yet again more good money will be thrown after bad.

The so called stimulus element of their Budget is flimsy or non existent. The car scrappage scheme will divert spending from domestic services into car imports from Germany, France and Japan. Good for them, not so good for us.

Cutting tax on alcohol may seem populist and is designed no doubt to reverse the trend in cross border shopping, but if the exchange rate changes against us once more that price advantage will be wiped out and we'll be back to square one.

No real plan, no new ideas and no long term strategy.

Fine Gael's plan offered a way to make the necessary spending savings while still protecting valued entitlements like child benefit, as well as core pay for the 55,000 public servants earning less than €30,000.

Our plan was also committed to restoring our competitiveness and driving export-led jobs growth. That is why Fine Gael set out in advance of the Budget costed plans for a €900m cut in employers' PRSI and cuts in energy prices and local rates.

That is why we published "NewERA"-a plan to bring private sector finance and management expertise to deliver an €18 billion investment programme over the next four years in key infrastructure networks - broadband, energy and water - that are holding back businesses across the country. All together, our plans would have created 50,000 new jobs next year and 175,000 within five years.

What was offered by Fine Gael was real vision, the sort of leadership which 50 years ago lead Lemass and Whitaker to publish their first Plan of Economic Development.

Finally, one of the cornerstones of any approach to a Budget like this has to be fairness. This Budget was anything but fair. Child benefit cut, widow's pension cut, money for the blind and for carers cut. And then, because they flunked real reform in the public sector they hammered those on low incomes by taking 5% off those earning less than €30,000. They couldn't stop the €250m on increments each year, tackle overtime costs or outdated work practises but they could hit the cleaners who earn a fraction of what a Minister earns.

The crazy result of this decision is that an office cleaner in the Department of Finance will take a greater proportionate pay cut after tax than Minister Lenihan. That is because Ministers in the Fianna Fáil/Green Government will only take a 5% pay cut as a result of Budget 2010, not the 15% they tried to fool people in to believing. They forgot to mention that they announced a 10% cut in April which means that the actual pay cut for a Minister from yesterday is, in fact, 5%.

Who should be taking the greater cut? The part-time cleaner or the Minister in the worst Government in living memory? I agree. But Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan don't and that tells you all you need to know about their priorities and this Budget.