Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The budget is full of taxes, charges and levies targeted at middle Ireland, while nothing has been done to ask the high rollers to pay their fair share. This is a budget airline budget. The speech was full of high-minded waffle about patriotic action, but when one looks at the small print, one sees the taxes and charges. My colleague, Deputy Róisín Shortall, has begun to count them and has reached 30. The treacherous 30 cuts. This is where the €1 fare suddenly becomes €100. However, those in first class will not be affected.

This budget is not fair, it is mean. It does not protect the less well off, it attacks them. It gives the meanest possible increase in social welfare, cuts entitlements, and takes medical cards from elderly people. People who worked hard all their lives and paid taxes hand over fist have had the rug pulled from under them by Fianna Fáil. It does nothing to create jobs, in fact it will destroy jobs and it makes absolutely clear that the Government has learned nothing from its mistakes, but remains wedded to the same old failed developer-led economy.

Of course, to learn from its mistakes, the Government would have to admit it made any. That it refuses to do. It took it three months to admit there was any economic problem in the first place and now it claims this whole mess is someone else's fault. Given the turmoil in international financial markets, it is easy for the Government to deflect blame elsewhere. However, if it is all to do with international problems, why is Ireland the first eurozone economy to enter into recession? If it is the fault of the international economy, why is the downturn in the Irish public finances greater than in any other country? If this is all the fault of someone else, why are we seeing the fastest ever rise in the live register, long before the international credit crunch?

The truth is that this is a homegrown domestic recession brought on by failed economic management by a Government which coasted in good times and is bewildered in the new economic circumstances. When it came to office, the Government was handed an economy in excellent condition in the middle of an export boom. From 2001, however, the export boom faded to be replaced by an economy driven by a property bubble.

I cannot recall the number of times I and my Labour Party colleagues called on the Government to tackle rising house prices. Again and again we raised it but the Government refused to act. Anyone who dared question the boom was denounced. When people raised legitimate questions about the economy's direction, particularly about the use of tax breaks to feather-bed property developers, they were denounced by the former Minister for Finance and now EU Commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, as left-wing pinkos and they advised the country to party on. Not to be outdone, the former Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, around the same time, denounced anyone who questioned his Government's economic strategy as a creeping Jesus. As recently as July 2007, Deputy Bertie Ahern, in an address to the ICTU conference in Bundoran, said he did not know why people who engaged in cribbing and moaning about the economy did not commit suicide.

Fianna Fáil did nothing to limit the growth in house prices. It refused to curtail speculation, to implement the Kenny report, which would have controlled the price of building lands and it remained addicted to property-based tax incentives. That is why we have a recession and why people on low and middle-incomes are being asked to pick up the tab.

There is a bailout for the banks and property speculators. There is none, however, for a young couple who took out one of those 100% mortgages now faced with higher mortgage repayments, job insecurity and being hit with a series of further tax hikes.

The only place a person in those circumstances can go for help and advice when the banks and building societies are descending on them to repay the mortgage is the Money Advice and Budgeting Service, MABS. It is interesting it is one of the State agencies to be emasculated under the guise of rationalisation. MABS will be amalgamated with the Citizens Information Board instead of being allowed to continue providing valuable, professional and independent services to people in money trouble.

It is also remarkable the Combat Poverty Agency will be hauled back into the social inclusion unit in the Department of Social and Family Affairs, the unit which gave this budget a clear bill of health yesterday. This is a case of the watchdog being withdrawn to the kennels. The Government does not want any independent voice examining how it is dealing with the plight of poor people.

When economies get into trouble, there is always a hunger for fiscal austerity. No matter where the recession starts, the first course of action is always to cut public services. The cry goes up, "Let there be pain". Pain for whom? It will not be the stockbrokers or the bankers but the patients on trolleys in Drogheda and every other accident and emergency department. We are told the economy needs tough medicine and people are advised to take it. People on an accident and emergency trolley would happily take their medicine if they could only get seen by a doctor. We are told it is time for tough decisions, but tough for whom? It will be tough for people losing their jobs and having their entitlements cut. They are the people who will have it tough.

Ministers give lectures on the need to be responsible. The cost of their failures will fall on the hard-working women and men, already experts on responsibility because they shoulder it every day. The people who work hard, nurture others, pay for everything and play by the rules are the ones who will carry the responsibility in this budget.

A family on a modest income will easily pay €2,000 more in tax as a result of this budget. A family on €60,000 will pay €734 extra in tax. A family with a child going to college will pay €600 more in fees. The Government seems not to know that the transition year exists and means many children do the leaving certificate at 18 yet child benefit for them has been abolished. If a family has a five year old, child care payment will be cut by €550. A family with medical expenses of any kind — it is not unusual for families to pay €2,000 or more in medical costs for someone who needs special care — will have its tax refund cut in half.

A family that must drive to work will pay €200 to park the car at work or pay €400 to use the park-and-ride facility at the train station. We still have to hear how this new car parking tax will be applied. Will this involve everyone who has a car parking space?

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