Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I am concerned that I heard the Minister of State say that while he accepts there were cuts, there were cuts across the board. The budget was cut from €40 million to €4 million. This is a 90% cut. Politicians' pay was not cut by 90%. It was cut, but not by 90%. Other programmes were cut, and I might have opposed those cuts, but they were cut by far less than Travellers' programmes were cut, including education, training and youth programmes. I can reel out the statistics. There were cuts of 60%, 70%, 80% and 90%. We look at what needs to be done going forward, but we will not get things right unless we accept what happened in the past, and the fact the cuts made to Traveller programmes were on a scale not seen by other programmes in the country and were way above and completely disproportionate to the cuts implemented in other areas.

I oppose all these cuts, but this by far the most. I am asking the Minister of State to comment on that.