Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The Minister also had a weak Financial Regulator. I do not believe he could have eyeballed the office cat in the banks. Yet, the Financial Regulator was asked to eyeball some of the most powerful and richest people in the country to tell them what they were doing did not seem quite right. Deputy Sherlock listened to one bank auditor yesterday at a committee declare that although he was aware of large loans to his bank's former chief executive, he was not aware what they were. This is crazy stuff and the Minister was knowledgeable about it.

The Minister will some time soon introduce a further rescue package for the banks. At the same time, in the Dublin West constituency, which we both share, I have a case of a former civil servant married to a garda with a family of four children. They bought a larger house for the family and she gave up her job when she had a fourth child because she could not afford the cost of child care. The current cost of her mortgage is €1,450 per month. From yesterday she is losing money from the child care allowance and her husband and she will have a levy costing them 6.5% to 7% gross, or approximately 4.5% after tax. That is in addition to the extra €2,000 the emergency budget cost them.

This is a middle income family living in Blanchardstown in the heart of my constituency and that of the Minister. She is part of the coping classes, those who work all their lives and who do not really blow it on debt. They like a nice holiday and want their kids to go to college. They have the same aspirations as many in this House. She stated: "The very poor have a voice, the very rich do not need a voice, but the middle incomes have no voice because nobody is out to help or assist [her]."

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