Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)

This budget was brought forward by two months. It was a rush job and, like all rush jobs or rushed legislation, it turned out very badly. It is clearly a budget drawn up by civil servants. The Minister who presented it clearly did not understand it or its implications. I will cite some of the Minister's indecisive waffle. About the public sector pay bill he said others might want to consider a pay cut. About spiralling HSE staffing levels he admitted that 1,900 administrative workers had joined the HSE, but offered no solutions. There were no measures on the decentralisation programme. He said he would decide on the future of the programme in 2011. There was no move on payments of child benefit. He said he would examine proposals the Commission on Taxation may have in this area. On student fees, the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, said the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, would draw up appropriate legislation to ensure students contribute to third-level education. It is all very vague.

This is a lazy budget brought in by a lazy Minister who read out the script he was given. I will deal with a few points in the script, for example the 1% levy on all workers. This is a very unfair tax on the lower paid. If one earns €100 per week one pays 1% and if one earns €30 per week one pays the same proportion. That is very unfair. The 8 cent per litre tax on petrol is another anti-worker penalty and is a penalty on every worker driving to work. In areas such as Galway city people drive from a 50 mile radius from places such as Clifden, Lettermore, Carraroe and Clonbur. They have no other option. Deputy Gormley says they should cycle to work. It is much he knows about it. I would like to see him cycling from Clifden to work in Galway on a windy day. When they arrive in Galway to work at a factory, county council, hospital or school, the Government will charge them €200 for parking there. Another tax on the list is 4.5% added to their motor tax. It is a complete penalty on the worker driving to work.

I will deal with another list of charges in this budget. Accident and emergency charges are up €34 to €100. Charges for public beds in hospitals are up €9 to €75. Charges for private beds in public hospitals are up by 20%. Long-stay charges are up by €31 to €151. Higher education registration fees are up from €900 to €1,500. The pupil-teacher ratio in primary schools has increased, although they are already over-crowded. This means pressure on teachers teaching in big classes. Medical cards for the over-70s will be means-tested, which I will deal with. Child benefit for over-18s is to be halved in 2009 and eliminated in 2010.

Now for the cruellest decision of all: the withdrawal by means test of medical cards to over-70s. They are the fathers and mothers who have built this country and who deserve more respect than they are given by this Government. In this budget the Government wants to penalise them for its mistakes. There is one more mean provision in the budget that will cost the over-70s €100 million per year, as well as the stress and worry about what will happen to them when they get sick or have to go to hospital. The over-70s have had the benefit and comfort of a medical card since 2001 and the Government wants to take it back. A good many years ago when I first started school we had a nursery rhyme in the school yard when a child gave one something and wanted to take it back after a couple of days:

Give a thing, take it back,

God will ask you, "Where is that?"

You will say you don't know,

God will send you down below.

I could add another line to that rhyme:

And you know what I will say,

The electorate will send you on your way.

I am giving that message to the Government because that is the message I am getting.

What will happen to those senior citizens approaching 70 or over 70 who have their life savings put by for a rainy day? Fearing the new means test, they will withdraw their savings, with all the added danger and worry that will bring. They will keep their savings in their homes because they will be means tested for the medical card.

There was no need for the Government to make that decision. There were many other ways to save €100 million without launching this attack on a vulnerable section of our community who the Government promised would not be affected by the budget. It is no good for the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Defence to lay the blame for this on the Minister for Health and Children. This was a Government decision. Where is the collective Government responsibility in this matter? Where now stand the Government backbenchers who gave a standing ovation to the Minister at the end of his speech? They are now saying that they do not agree with this decision. However, they voted several times this morning to support that move and will be given the opportunity to vote on it when the necessary legislation comes before the House. I can tell them all they will be watched.

I appeal to the Government to withdraw this measure. Information on the effect of the measure is being drip-fed to the public. Indeed, the entire budget is being drip-fed, with bits of information here and there and no coherence. I telephoned the HSE a number of times since the budget announcement but have not been able to obtain clear information on the guidelines for the over-70s medical card. This is driving people silly. My office has been inundated with calls from people wanting to know how they stand with regard to the medical card. The Government is making it up as it goes along. That is just further proof that the Government does not know what it is doing.

I appeal to the Minister to let common sense prevail on this matter and to ease the worries of our senior citizens, who deserve our support. They worked hard for this country in bad times to enable us, the generation that followed, to enjoy the good times that we have enjoyed in recent years. This is the most cruel aspect of the Minister's budget.

The Minister of State, Deputy Seán Power, asked the Opposition to be constructive, although he was not very constructive during his contribution. I will be constructive and outline what Fine Gael would do in these circumstances. My party took the unprecedented step, before the budget, of spelling out what we would do, were we in government, including implementing a 3% reduction in current spending for 2009, with the exception of the Department of Social and Family Affairs. We would impose a fee of €1.5 million on banks using the Government guarantee scheme. We would also freeze public sector pay and increments for 12 months for those earning over €50,000.

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