Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

No, it is not agreed. Earlier in the week the Taoiseach sought to portray that it was inconsistent for the Opposition parties to condemn the Government's economic management of the past four or five years and highlight the appalling consequences for public services that have flowed from this. It is wholly inappropriate that we would take these returning Estimates without debate. The Taoiseach, Deputy Cowen, was Minister for Finance in the years leading up to now. When a Minister for Finance engages in a foolhardy spending spree before an election, establishes unaccountable bureaucracies throughout the system, ignores repeated warnings that the housing market is over-heating, acts with inflationary budgets to fuel inflation and prices that damage our competitiveness and has a budgetary system that does not hunt down waste and does not reward high performance, the consequences are there for everyone to see. It means that when money gets scarce the vulnerable get hurt. That is what we are seeing. There is nothing inconsistent about the Opposition highlighting the consequences of Government action, or rather inaction, in recent years.

Last night on the Adjournment, the Ceann Comhairle allowed me to raise the matter of St. Michael's House. The Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Máire Hoctor, first informed the House that the Government, in its initial proposal, would provide less than half of what was needed to keep St. Michael's House ticking over. The latest bombshell dropped by the HSE is that it is now withdrawing all commitments on the €200 million which was to have been assigned for people with disability and elderly people. No commitments are being made on that funding and the HSE is withholding the possibility that it will veer that money to find the so-called efficiencies that are looked for. This is appalling. The most vulnerable people, including young families with children born with Down's syndrome or disability are being told by the service providers that they will have no service.

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