Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

Today's budget meets the challenge head on. It supports the incomes of the vulnerable. It keeps taxes low for working people and it helps home buyers and the housing market. It protects our environment for the future. It keeps the national development plan on track and it borrows modestly to invest ambitiously. It will sustain our development as an economy, a society and a nation. I commend the budget to the House.

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