Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

That is what happens when one has an unplanned decentralised system. If Departments were decentralised all over the country when the banking crisis erupted, there would have been chaos. A number of years ago we pointed out how decentralisation should have been implemented. Where decentralisation was planned in Donegal, Tullamore and other places around the country it has worked very well. Parking it in limbo until 2011 is obviously a political ploy to reactivate it at some stage.

The simple measure of the Government's performance yesterday is that we are demonstrably in a far worse position than any of our European neighbours. No country has been immune to the banking crisis, but when the international financial tsunami hit they were in a far better position to withstand it. No country has been as apathetic, lazy or smug in its response to this crisis. We saw what happened in Spain. In our recession, into which the Taoiseach has led us, yesterday's budget offered no light at the end of the tunnel. People know they are poorer now. They are worse off in that they will have to pay more. In terms of taking the major decisions, the Government funked this. In the Government's war on the middle classes an ordinary PAYE worker taking home €50,000 loses €1,000 of his or her income directly and then faces a series of extra costs and stealth charges, draining away that income, if he or she is lucky enough to be able to keep his or her job.

As the Taoiseach rightly pointed out, the people have endless courage and an unequalled capacity for work, but this morning they will read that the consequences of this budget will be a serious lowering of their standard of living. Many of them will be tipped into poverty. Nothing corrodes a family like poverty which is brought about by circumstances it cannot control. The new income levies are precisely that. They are crude in design and impact. In the past when we had major problems we levied the banks. Now that the banks have caused us enormous problems the Government has not levied them but slapped a levy on the mortgagedpoor.

I note the Minister for Finance yesterday judiciously leaked the fact the Government intends to reduce wages in the banking sector, as a diversion to what is happening today. The spin machine is in full flight, particularly in the Department of Social and Family Affairs. We were told last July there would be no cutbacks in education, health or social welfare and that the poor and vulnerable would be protected. We know what the spin is but the reality is very different.

Pensioners who are to get an extra euro per day will see the value of that increase go down the tubes when their medical card is means tested. The Government does not seem to appreciate the mentality of elderly people who were awarded a medical card by the State. The Taoiseach has said that some of them will receive a €400 grant towards their medical expenses but the vast majority of such people have respiratory illnesses and will not use the €400 grant because they are afraid to go to the doctor in the first place. They will end up in hospital beds, which would not happen had they gone to their doctor in the first place.

The Government set up a system to award medical cards to all those over 70 and the recipients were comfortable with that. Had the Government said in the beginning that it intended to give medical cards to those over 70, subject to a particularly flexible means test, those who are well off and over 70 would have accepted that. Instead, the Government introduced a universal scheme, which those over 70 accepted and with which they were very comfortable. Many elderly people will not use a GP-visit card or the €400 grant because they are afraid to go to the doctor in the first place. They will get so ill that they will end up in hospital and on trolleys, as the Minister for Health and Children knows only too well. The Government's actions in respect of these medical cards is deplorable and despicable.

This budget is all about taking back from diligent people who carry no responsibility for the disaster that this Government has failed to avert. There are cutbacks in medical care provision and increases in accident and emergency charges. The Taoiseach clarified the position this morning regarding nursing homes, raised by Deputy Michael Noonan yesterday, although we do not yet know the final shape of the fair deal legislation..

This nation faces a cut in direct front line services in education and increases in class sizes. Does anyone remember the promises made by the former Ministers for Education and Science, Deputies Micheál Martin and Noel Dempsey? It is a case of give a thing, take it back.

For families, this budget is a double-edged sword. The pain starts here and now but the real suffering will begin in six months' time. If the Department of Finance has got its figures wrong, in terms of the international projections, then God help Ireland next year. The Government has fleeced us through taxes on petrol, travel, capital gains and so forth, with the prospect of more to come for every citizen next year.

The Department of Finance got all its figures wrong in recent years. It got all the figures wrong for this year and yet it can predict what the international situation will be next year and the year after. Fianna Fáil in Government has suddenly found the crystal ball and the path back to budgetary efficiency, a strong economy and competitiveness. It will achieve these by taxing every person to pay for its wanton mistakes and its fast and reckless use of taxpayers' money.

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