The Government should use the current economic crisis to drive through change and reinvent Ireland the Fine Gael Finance spokesman said today.
Speaking on RTÉ's This Weekprogramme, Richard Bruton said: "We have to totally reinvent ourselves and the catalyst of crisis is the opportunity to drive through those changes"
“For a start we have to revolutionise the way we do our budgets.
“We don’t have the concept of performance driving our public spending and we have to reform that”.
Mr Bruton said the challenges facing the economy include cutting costs and becoming more efficient.
“That has to be the driving force behind this budget.
“There’s no point in using this budget just to chase down the economy with more tax increases - we have to really focus on how to create opportunities in this environment.
“We first have to get efficient and we have to cut our costs. Pay must come down and it has to be led from the top,” he said.
Mr Bruton said the country is in a “very grave situation” financially and has forgotten how to prosper as a small open economy.
Although the worldwide economic recession played a huge role in the current crisis, Ireland was “totally unprepared for it”, he added.
“The impact in Ireland is far greater than in any other European country because of the extent to which we were exposed.
“We had our own problems that would have confronted us anyhow but now they are being combined with this huge external problem in the markets that we depend on to build recovery,” he said.
