Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is using a method of debating that is often employed. He is arguing from the particular to the general by using particular lurid arguments that will excite sympathy from his audience, before applying those arguments as if they were general. However, they are not general. The health service, the education service and other desirable services are short of resources because the economy was destroyed. Until very recently, the economy was no longer generating the resources needed to adequately fund such services. The way to have proper health and education services and to expand all the services that we consider necessary is to make sure the economy continues to grow and then to use the resources of that growing economy to fund the necessary services. If the necessary services are funded first, while putting the fiscal burden back on the economy, one will repeat the cycle and the economy will decline again. It might even collapse again in such circumstances. That is the problem with the Deputy's economic analysis. It is not as if anyone disagrees with him that we should do our best to make sure no elderly people are on trolleys and to look after children who are particularly vulnerable.