Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The Minister is quoted in The Irish Times and other newspapers today as saying "we have to adjust our expectations" and "modify our behaviour" instead of "whinging". Mothers who go shopping often have their children with them and the children whinge as they look for a bar of chocolate and so on. Is the Minister telling consumers to cut the whinging? He is the one on a salary of €250,000 and the Government has decreed that he will get a €20,000 increase shortly. Who is entitled to whinge? Will the Minister explain those comments? Will he withdraw his charge that people should stop whinging?

Perhaps people have something to whinge about — those losing their jobs, the businesses closing down, the construction workers becoming idle and in particular the shoppers, mothers and fathers who push trolleys around with their children, who find the price of a basket of goods a difficulty and find it difficult to make ends meet at present. Perhaps the Minister will agree that some of these people are entitled to feel let down by the Government and the Taoiseach and by the former Minister for Finance, who made a bags of stamp duty reform and partly brought us to where we are now.

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