Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

I intend to address transport issues and the bail-out of the banks. Earlier today I witnessed the pathetic attempts by the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Ryan, to explain his wretched party's decision to support the bail-out. Last night, the Green Party crossed the Rubicon. Not only is it propping up the efforts of Fianna Fáil to bail out its developer and banking friends but it has also sold out its key principle of sustainable public transport. More than €315 million was slashed from the transport budget. This reduces the 2009 public transport provision to €630 million, whereas the vast bulk of expenditure is still going on roads. Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann are set to lose nearly 300 buses from their fleets under the current programme of cutbacks overseen by the Minister for Transport, Deputy Dempsey. Commuters in communities across Ireland have been devastated by this news, which will particularly impact on low income families, senior and other vulnerable citizens. The Green Party backed the Minister's disturbing comment that the €10 million in cuts to CIE's subsidy will be offset by the sale of public transport lands. This fatally undermines any prospect for integrated public transport.

I was amazed to be presented this morning with a glossy copy of the Government's third annual report on Transport 21. This has become a work of fiction given that all the modest Transport 21 gains for the Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann fleets will be wiped out under the proposals to cut 300 buses from their fleets. In terms of critical bus services, therefore, the new report is obsolete. A further €150 million has been slashed from public transport funding.

The most alarming element of the supplementary budget summary presented by the Minister for Finance refers to deferrals and rescheduling of public transport projects. I am left with the suspicion this is just a fig leaf for the abandonment of key public transport projects. Public transport infrastructural projects which are set to be deferred or rescheduled this year reportedly include metro west, the electrification of the Maynooth line, the upgrading of the Dublin-Maynooth and Cherry Orchard-lnchicore lines, the Kilbarry rail station on the Cork-Blarney commuter line and Luas power upgrade works. The Navan rail line, the western rail corridor and, despite the Minister for Transport's assertions, the Dublin rail interconnector are also threatened. This budget represents an appalling surrender by the Green Party on public transport.

The national assets management agency or bad bank plan proposed in this budget is an unprecedented and outrageous assault on Irish families. In the words of Joe Stiglitz, "it is a win-win-lose proposal: the banks win, investors win - and taxpayers lose". Each Irish citizen will have a burden of as much as €100,000 placed on his or her shoulder as a result of the grotesque incompetence of the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance.

It is such an appalling gamble with our future that it needs to be placed before the people in a general election. We need to see change throughout the banking structure and its senior management and we need more change on the benches opposite than a reduction in the number of Ministers of State. We need a new face in this country, as the rating agency rightly said, and a general election.

Irish citizens may face liabilities of more than €120 billion in bailing out property developers and speculators. The dodgy deals that span the globe are dangerous beyond belief. Why are the chief executives of AIB, Mr. Eugene Sheehy, and the EBS, Mr. Fergus Murphy, still in place? Why has Bank of Ireland promoted an insider to the position of chief executive officer? If this Government will not take the banking sector by the scruff of the neck, it must be replaced.

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