Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)

There was no reference to the Irish language in yesterday's Budget Statement. I hope the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, is concerned not only because no Irish was spoken by his colleague, Deputy Cowen, yesterday but because the Minister for Finance, who is the deputy leader of a party that has traded for a long time on its policy of restoring the Irish language, did not even mention that language and the possibility of its revival.

The proposed social finance initiative was the only aspect of yesterday's budget that related to the voluntary and community sectors, another matter that is part of my brief. The Minister for Finance said he will talk to the banks, which have indicated that they will talk to him, about seed capital and the availability of loans for the voluntary and community sectors. That is all that was offered to a sector that is central to the future quality of life of many people here.

Security issues were not mentioned by the Minister, Deputy Cowen, yesterday. The quality of life of many people in all parts of the country is in decline because they are worried about the security of their homes. The tendency of certain people to engage in anti-social behaviour is increasing, but that was not addressed by the Minister.

The scourge of cocaine use is another matter on which the Minister for Finance failed to reflect yesterday. It is estimated that cocaine worth approximately €110 million reached our streets in the first ten months of this year, but the Minister did not mention this worsening problem. The use of cocaine in Britain is increasing because it is more socially acceptable and it is becoming cheaper. There were 25 million cocaine users and 2 million cocaine addicts in the United States in the mid-1990s. The level of use of this dangerous drug has become a scourge. Cocaine use has become a middle-class activity in many ways. The snorting of cocaine by middle-class people at weekends is euphemistically referred to as the leisure use of the drug.

Yesterday's budget was a failure in many respects. Although a great deal of money could have been used to deal with problems in community life, such as the scourges which affect ordinary people, little or nothing was on offer yesterday.

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