Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Yes, "Where is my money gone?". The pensioners, people who will have to pay the 1% levy, people on social welfare, the sick and the underprivileged of the country will be waiting for the backbenchers and the Fianna Fáil Ministers. By next week, the over 70s will have their medical cards back because when these backbenchers go home next weekend, they will get the backlash from the people. The backbenchers will not be clapping and they will not be singing "Sinne Fianna Fáil" in the Dáil with the Fianna Fáil choir that was here last Tuesday.

I remember when the Deputy's colleague from Cork, the Minister, Deputy Micheál Martin, introduced the medical card scheme in 2001. Deputy Martin was one of the greatest disasters as a Minister in the Departments of Education and Science and Health and Children. He announced free medical cards for the over 70s and he told the people of the country this would happen before reaching a deal with the doctors. They are paid €197 for a person under 70 years who has a medical card but over €640 for a person over 70 years, which is a scandal. It is no wonder that country is in this mess.

The Government is responsible for one scandal after another. Consider the nursing home debacle where the Government took money off pensioners; it must return that money now. Consider the people who prop up the Government on a weekly basis, namely, the Fianna Fáil backbenchers and Independents, Deputies Finian McGrath, Jackie Healy-Rae and Michael Lowry. I say to those who will be talking to the Fianna Fáil backbenchers in the coming days that these people said before the election that this would not happen. They said last week it would not happen. However, on Tuesday the Minister for Finance came to the House and targeted the people that suffered in this country. These are the people who in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s paid 60% and 70% tax when the country was going down the drain. What happens when the time comes that such people need something back, such as their medical card? It is taken off them.

I look forward to talking to my colleagues after they go home this weekend. I suspect what they will hear is something like the calls my staff and I have received in my office or the discussions on national and local radio. People are appalled that the great republican party, Fianna Fáil, which has always said it would look after the old, sick and weak, is looking after the builders and the bankers again this week. There will be legislation tomorrow to save the bankers.

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