Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)

Since my election to this House and, essentially during the past ten years, there have been many years of economic growth during which money was squandered. Having regard to that, what is happening as a result of the announcement of the savage cuts inside and outside this House is frightening.

The Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance have said that the most vulnerable in the community will not be hit by the cuts, but I can assure them that our most vulnerable people, the elderly, are being hit. The home care packages and the home help service, which were very much welcomed by the elderly, have been totally cut in my county in recent months. Anybody, having left hospital, who has sought a home care grant or a home help service has been told to go away because such grants are not available due to a funding crisis within the HSE in the south eastern area. Our elderly are the most the most vulnerable and dependent of our people. We all have elderly parents, aunts, uncles or grandparents and they all appreciate the welcome support of the home help service. It is a scandal that this service has been cut. People who had a home help for six hours a week have had the number of hours reduced to four. It is a scandal that this has happened. It was a lie for the Minister for Health and Children to come into House and say that the delivery of these packages is not being cut.

I was interested to hear the Ministers for Education and Science and Finance say there would be no cutbacks in the education sector, but the Minister responsible asked the VECs to cut their funding yesterday. We all know that primary schools, secondary schools and VECs are hard pressed to cope. The Government recently introduced water charges for schools. Schools have had to fundraise to pay for items they should not have to pay for. It was great when the Government was able to blame Europe in this respect. It is great pass the buck and to blame somebody else, but these are front-line education services. This has affected the school building programme. Many school extensions and new schools have been promised in my county. The school authorities in a school in Crossabeg were promised that a project would proceed a year and a half ago, but they are still no closer to the project being delivered and now they have been told to hold off in respect of it. I met the Minister for Education and Science last week and I hope he will have some good news on that project. There is nothing as bad as promising something to a local school board and then having to tell its members that the project will not be delivered.

The decentralisation programme was announced, with great fanfare, in the House in the 2004 budget. I remember that day when all the Government backbenchers and Ministers raced out the door of this Chamber to go their constituencies, local radio stations and local newspapers to tell them, with great fanfare, of all the jobs that would be coming to their constituencies. I will give an example of what is happening in regard to that programme in my town of Enniscorthy. Enniscorthy Town Council paid huge money for an old convent on Nunnery Road in recent years. The OPW promised to buy it off them for the purposes of decentralisation. The decentralisation programme has been shelved and now Enniscorthy Town Council has been left holding the baby. This is typical of what this Government has been doing over the last number of years. If the Tánaiste is going to come down and give more money to the estimates for Enniscorthy Town Council she is very welcome but, like all Governments over the last number of years, this one has refused to fund local authorities. It will ensure it will bring in plenty of stealth taxes over the next while. The Government has announced a 3% cut in the payroll of all local authorities. The Minister knows this 3% will be taken off the overall budget and sewerage and water schemes, roads and house building will be affected. I would love to go on for the next hour, but unfortunately, I had only five minutes. I would like to take the opportunity to criticise what has been happening in this House over the last while.

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