Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Thank you. This Government is scapegoating the public sector. Public sector reform, pay and pensions are certainly part of the solution but the public sector did not create the property crash. It did not create the tax breaks that the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Cowen, continued and expanded to keep the bubble growing. The public sector did not create the crash; Fianna Fáil and Fianna Fáil-led Governments first blew the bubble to ridiculous proportions, which caused the crash.

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