Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)

I wish to share my time with Deputy Simon Coveney.

This is a very important debate on the budget which has placed the most difficult tax burden on the people of Ireland since the foundation of the State. The Fianna Fáil part of the Government and what is left of the Progressive Democrats part of it have been in power for more than 11 years. They have been managing the affairs of the State for many years and they had prior knowledge of our economic situation but refused to act earlier. They went into a massive post-election spend which continued despite the gathering of economic storm clouds. They cannot escape the fact that under their leadership the economy has become less competitive and less efficient and that jobs are being lost left, right and centre as a result of Government policy.

There should have been no cutback on capital expenditure on transport. A well functioning, efficient and competitive transport system is the key to Ireland's economic recovery. The World Economic Forum competitiveness report published last week listed inadequate infrastructure as the most problematic factor for those doing business in Ireland. It does not make sense to cut back on expenditure on transport infrastructure. The quality of our transport infrastructure has dropped a number of places over the past year. Ireland dropped from 55th place in 2007 to 64th in 2008 out of 134 nations in the quality of overall infrastructure. The quality of roads has dropped ten places to 70, air transport infrastructure has dropped to 46th place and port infrastructure has remained unchanged at 64th place. If we want to make an economic recovery we must continue to invest in transport infrastructure. The cutbacks in this transport programme are unacceptable to everyone.

A number of significant key Transport 21 projects will be delayed. The target of 2015 for the delivery of these programmes is in doubt. We know that some of them will not be constructed. The Government must ensure that the objectives of increasing our competitiveness can only be met by an improvement in transport infrastructure.

I wish to respond to some of the issues raised in today's debate. The Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, stated that Deputy Bruton has been making a claim which I know he never made. I refer to the words of Deputy Bruton when he dismissed absolutely and utterly the claims by the Minister for Health and Children. It seems the Minister has neither mandate nor party at this stage and she is lecturing us about our economic policies. The Minister for Health and Children has repeatedly claimed that Deputy Bruton wants to cut the health budget by €700 million and she equates this to the closure of three hospitals or the sacking of 10,000 people. However, that is false. What Deputy Bruton said, and Fine Gael repeats, is that we would not have sanctioned the increases of €224 million in the HSE pay bill, including the massive bonuses and perks for the underperforming HSE managers. Unlike the Government, Fine Gael would have delivered savings in the national drugs and pharmacy Bill by allowing pharmacists to substitute generic drugs for their branded equivalents. Fine Gael would have set out a concrete and specific plan to cut the number of administrators in the HSE who have been effectively redundant for four years since the amalgamation of the old health boards. Fine Gael reforms would not impact on front line services.

The Minister, Deputy Harney and the rest of the motley crew in Government have visited on the elderly of this country a most disgraceful and shameful withdrawal of rights they were given. Some years ago I was walking down a street in New York and noticed a number of senior citizens in ragged clothes begging on the streets. I thanked God that would not happen in our country because we value our senior citizens and give them a place of honour in our society which we will not take from them. That is not the case today under the Minister, Deputy Harney, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party in coalition.

What price has the Green Party paid for its carbon budget? What price are the elderly paying? Some 125,000 senior citizens aged over 70 will have their medical cards reviewed. Some 125,000 visits to homes, hospitals or nursing homes will have to be made by community welfare officers who will ask the sick and elderly what income and property they have and determine whether they are entitled to the benefit of the medical card, which most of them have had for at least seven years. That means the youngest of those who received the medical card seven years ago are aged 77. People in their late 70s, 80s, 90s and, please God, some who have lived to 100 years of age will be means tested. Many are seriously ill, extremely worried, suffer from Alzheimer's or cannot even talk. This is what the Government is doing to them and it is an appalling, shameful and disgraceful way to act.

The mark of a just and caring society is how it treats those who are coming into the world — the young — and those who are leaving it — our elderly who are seriously ill or are, unfortunately, heading that way, as we all, eventually, will. This is an important milestone in our society, that the Government is targeting the most vulnerable for these cuts. It is inexcusable. The older people who are ringing my office, and those of the Minister, Deputy Harney, and the Minister of State, Deputy Devins — if the Minister, Deputy Harney, has any staff left — are saying they will not wear it, they do not want it and that it is unacceptable. The Minister can say what she likes about the numbers of people, the 15,000 here and 20,000 there, but every old person is angry and extremely concerned about their future when we should be giving them the place of honour in our society to which they are entitled. They have paid their dues and taxes, reared their families, and the Government is robbing them. I do not know how to describe the Government. It is like Scrooge, taking money from the pockets of the poor elderly people of our society. It is an unacceptable, disgraceful and shameful situation.

That leaves us with this budget which takes €2 billion from the pockets of our taxpayers and the people over 70 who have pensions. It is easy for the Minister of State, Deputy Devins, to smirk and smile, but those people are sitting in their homes saying they were not paying tax last week but from 1 January they will pay the 1% levy. The Government is taxing those incomes again. Elderly people tend to worry a lot. We all know that, and the Minister of State, Deputy Devins, has a medical background. Elderly people would be very concerned about this and worry disproportionately. The impact on them will be much more severe than on younger and more able people. This must be reconsidered.

One of the points made about this benefit was that it was done in such a way that the medical doctors put a gun to taxpayers' heads and charged €600 per medical card for over 70s. A far better way of tackling this issue would have been to tell the doctors this is not good enough and it is costing too much, demand a reduction and negotiate those fees back down. That would have been an acceptable starting point. What the Government has done is unacceptable.

The rhetoric from the Green Party is sad because its proposal contained many good points, but also many poor elements, with which Deputy Coveney will deal in a moment. I will deal with the transport issues to which the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, referred. He spoke about what they will do in transport, specifically the removal of pinch points on the quality bus corridors, integrated ticketing and real time passenger information at bus stops and mobile telephones. He said: "Most people who stand at a bus stop know the frustration of not knowing when the bus will come." Dozens of buses were on the road between Dublin and Lucan and Celbridge for many years but are not coming any more. They were run by the private Circle Line. There was a very good system in place but unfair competition from the taxpayer-subsidised Dublin Bus put Circle Line out of business.

Under the Green Minister we had convoys of buses, three Dublin Bus buses in front of a Circle Line bus, three after it and three waiting at the bus stop, all by virtue of the wealth we give Dublin Bus to run an inefficient and dominant system. The quotes in the Minister's office make it clear that it has abused it dominant position in the marketplace to put out of business decent and honourable people who ran a very good bus service. It does not matter whether a Dublin Bus or a Circle Line bus comes as long as a bus comes, but if the Government does not open the bus market in Dublin to competition, the buses for which people wait will not be provided because of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley.

All the big ideas are there. If we have buses on the streets of Dublin we can provide people with the routes, but the Minister and the Government are prisoners of Dublin Bus and the unions. They are afraid to open the market, afraid to have competition, and the commuter suffers most of all. I challenge the Green Party to provide the buses. I challenge it to have the guts to stand up to Fianna Fáil, Dublin Bus and all the vested interests that are stopping people having a real choice.

The cuts in transport are severe and serious. Public transport is down 5% and roads are down 7%. Road safety is a critical issue but by way of thanks for the good work done by the Road Safety Authority, its budget is being cut by 9%. Regional airports are being cut by €13 million. Rural roads are being cut. It goes on and on. This is a shameful, disgraceful Government that has no guts and did not tell the truth when it could have, before the last election and immediately after it, and did not act when it could have and when it knew it had to during the summer. The Government has acted too late, tackled the wrong people and focused on those who are weakest and least able to fight. Even their health is being taken from them. As was said about former Minister Ernest Blythe in the 1930s, people will remember this budget for a long time.

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