Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I thank Deputy Deenihan for his comments on the Ard-Fheis. It is one of the issues I wish to raise. Last week, I was at a wedding in Portugal. One could get a three course meal for €9.90 in every restaurant one went to. I hope the media will pick this up. I went to Ard-Fheis last Saturday evening which was held at the Citywest Hotel. It was rip-off Ireland at its worst. One sandwich cost €5.25 and two teas cost €5.20, a total of €10.45. We wonder why this country is in the mess it is in. I hope such conferences will go elsewhere because when hotels get a crowd in, they have to rip them off. That is why we are in this situation.

I want to discuss the budget. It is anti-family, anti-women and anti-children. It is an attack on the family, women and children of this country. It taxes the engine of this country, the men and women of the country who work and who have been taxed into such a state they will hardly be able to live. I listened to the Government and Ministers talking about another budget and saying it was a great idea. Where was the Department of Finance? Where were all the advisers in the Department? The Taoiseach was the Minister for Finance and created the problem for the country.

There is a world economic problem, but we now have the worst problem in the world because our Ministers and Government did not do what was right. In any family or home, everybody puts a bit away for a rainy day. What did the Department of Finance do? It funded quango after quango and allowed staff to be employed by the State. It never thought a bad day would come where such staff would have to be paid by the State. It spent and spent and it could not get the correct figures when things were going well. It cannot get the correct figures when things are going badly.

If one is lost, one asks for directions on how to get to a place. If one does not know where one is going, there is no point asking anybody for help. This Government does not know where it is going. There is no point asking the people of the country to help it with taxation because it does not know what to do. It has lost control of the economy and the country. It has let the people of the country down badly.

I wish to raise another issue regarding Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív's Department and the elderly. The home security support scheme was put in place for the elderly. It provides alarms to put around one's neck to those who live in rural Ireland who are afraid they will be robbed and murdered by thugs from all over the country. The scheme has now been scrapped. It was only three weeks ago that Minister of State at the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy John Curran, announced, with a big fanfare, that €300,000 had been allocated to the scheme. What is wrong with the Department? Three weeks ago it had €300,000 and today the scheme has been scrapped.

It is no wonder the people out there are angry. It is no wonder "Liveline" and "Today with Pat Kenny" feature people who are angry because there is no leadership from the other side of the House. No Minister and no Government Department knows what they are doing. Previous speakers have said the same.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Micheál Martin, has come into the House. If he stayed in the country more instead of travelling all over the world he would know what was going on. The people out there are angry, sick, tired and are weary of this Government. The people do not mind putting their shoulder to the wheel if they get some leadership but there is none. The Government is in place too long.

The Government is putting a toxic bank in place. It will save the builders, developers and the bankers. The poor divils who renege on their mortgages find themselves in court while the bank puts them out of their homes and repossesses them. The people who created the problem, the bankers and the builders, now have to be bailed out and saved by the taxpayer. No banker has been put in jail for what they have caused and hardly any of them have lost their jobs. Who is bailing them out? The answer is the Government. The people who bought property not too far from here and hotels to develop will be saved by the Government and the taxpayer. The poor taxpayers do not know how they will rear their families, educate their children and if they will have a job next week, yet we saved the bankers and builders who are the people who created the problems in the country.

When the Ministers go home this weekend, they will hear anger; people will tell them what they think of the Government. I am a member of the Opposition and received many calls today. People are frightened about what is going on in the country and feel they have been let down by the Government who have sold them down the drain. When they hear a bank will be set up to protect the bankers and builders, it is no wonder there is anger out there.

The Government needs to get its act together. The people cannot pay any more tax. They have just enough money. The people working out there hope their jobs will be secure. The Government needs to get its act together because if it thinks it can have a budget every day and week, it cannot.

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