Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

When I hear Government Deputies reciting endless lists of increases in certain percentages, I am reminded of the time I spent listening to Radio Moscow when I was a young boy in the mid-1980s. Listeners to that radio station would hear great tales of increases in factory production and other statistics aimed at proving that the Soviet state was making progress. The reality was that its foundations were crumbling underneath those who were reading the reports. That is also the reality in the case of the Government which has been corrupted by the years it has spent in power. We know that absolute power inevitably leads to such corruption. The Government is corrupt in the sense that its expenditure plans are designed to serve selective vested interests, rather than the interests of the people, even if it is not aware of it.

I have often criticised the Government's expenditure on the roads programme on the basis that similar amounts of money are not being invested in the public transport system. Given that all the transport experts with whom I am familiar agree with me that the Government's policy does not make any sense, I presume it is being pursued to benefit the construction companies which are making money from pouring concrete. It is an example of a Government policy suiting the vested interests. Similarly, when I analyse the Government's utter failure to invest properly in energy conservation or put in place proper building standards to ensure the housing stock of the future will survive the impending oil crisis, I can only conclude that it has been set on that path by its developer friends who can be seen in the Fianna Fáil tent at the Galway races. I can give many other examples of the Government being corrupted by certain vested interests. Some €55 million has been spent on building up this country's fishing fleet in the past five years, but it is now proposed to spend a further €45 million on decommissioning that fleet. It is another example of the incompetence, waste and corruption that lies at the foundation of the Government. For that reason, I ask the electorate to kick it out of office.

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