Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I thank the Taoiseach for offering to make the income information available. The income distribution on which this decision is based should be published today.

The formula announced today by the Taoiseach has been designed more to solve his political problem than to settle the worries of pensioners who are concerned about losing their medical cards. While it may satisfy the more gullible of his backbenchers, I do not believe it will satisfy those pensioners who are rightly concerned about this measure and see what was done last week as an assault on them. It was a kick in the teeth to those who have given a lifetime of work to this country and who ask for nothing more than to have the peace of mind, through the possession of a medical card, to visit their doctors when feeling unwell in the morning without being obliged to worry about the cost.

The Taoiseach is departing on a trade mission to China and, like Deputy Kenny, I wish him well in this regard. However, he is leaving behind him the biggest budget shambles of any Government in recent times. When the economy began to experience difficulties, the Taoiseach's big idea for addressing it was to bring forward the date of the budget. He now is in a position whereby he cannot get the budget that was announced in this Chamber last Tuesday through the House. One after another, the measures he announced in the budget are falling like nine-pins. The medical card issue has had to be changed. The Taoiseach informed the House earlier today that he will be obliged to make changes to the income levy and I believe that, in time, he will be forced to make changes to other measures that were announced in the budget, including the issues of class sizes, cuts in education and some cuts in the social welfare area that Members have not yet addressed. The Taoiseach's budget is a mess. What is the standing of the Government and what is its authority as the Taoiseach leaves for China in circumstances where he clearly does not have a mandate for what he is doing? This is not what he or, indeed, anybody presented to the Irish people last June. He has no mandate to do what he did in last week's budget, whether in regard to the medical cards or other issues. It is now manifest these measures cannot be put through the House.

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