Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

Will this apply to those who have temporary use of facilities and drive to work some days but not on others? Will they have to pay the full amount? This is an example of finding every possible means to inflict additional taxes on working people.

These same families will pay more in so-called voluntary contributions in schools because school funding has been frozen while school expenses have rocketed. They will pay more for petrol to go to work. They will pay more to visit an accident and emergency department if, by some chance, they happen to have an accident or an emergency and cannot pop into the GP on the way. They will pay 0.5% more on VAT on everything else they spend.

As they munch on their breakfast rolls this morning, the people in the commuter belt who voted Fianna Fáil back into office in large numbers have been betrayed. They will carry the can. Perhaps the best expression of the Government's philosophy came, not from any Minister but from its devoted friend and champion, the chairman of Anglo-Irish Bank. Safely protected from the consequences of his failures by the Government guarantee and having pocketed the largest welfare cheque ever written, he was prominent in his call for pain.

See this speech in context