Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

The Sinn Féin Deputies will vote no confidence in the Government in the Dáil tomorrow. The people clearly have no confidence in the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government and have shown that by their overwhelming rejection of both parties in last Friday's local and European elections. This is a disastrous Government and it has no mandate. It has no political authority to govern and clearly has no confidence to do so. The 400,000 unemployed people and their dependants demand that this Government should go. The many thousands of workers whose incomes have been hit by pay cuts, short-term working and unfair levies demand that the Government should go. People hit by savage cuts to public services to health and education demand that this Government should go. The coalition of corrupt politicians, property developers and bankers brought this economy to its knees and they will not and cannot lead it into recovery. They should all be turfed out.

People have not punished the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government because a global recession has hit Ireland. They have done so because they know the recession is worst in our country as a result of the disastrous policies pursued by Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats for more than a decade and the disastrous decisions made by Fianna Fáil and the Green Party over the past two years. The programme for Government was negotiated by three parties, one of which, the Progressive Democrats, no longer exists although its former leader remains a key Minister. The Green Party has been reduced to three seats in local government and Fianna Fáil suffered an unprecedented loss of 89 city and county council seats.

The former leader of the Green Party engaged in the charade of saying he would resign as leader rather than go into Government with Fianna Fáil. He did resign, not in an effort to prevent or oppose such a coalition but to facilitate it and that is exactly what happened. It was downhill all the way for the Green Party after that.

This Government is totally out of touch with the people. A couple of weeks before the election the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, claimed that social welfare rates in this State are,"far more generous than those in other countries". He suggested they are a disincentive to work. The suggestion is an insult to the tens of thousands of people dependent on social welfare who are struggling from week to week. The Minister should try living on the jobseeker's allowance of €204.37 per week, or, better still, try living on the new €100 per week rate for unemployed people aged under 20 after the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government's savage cutback in the budget last April. Thousands of people are joining the dole queues every month thanks to disastrous policies of this Government but instead of coming up with a real retention and job creation strategy the Minister, Deputy Lenihan, is preparing to cut social welfare on the spurious basis that unemployed people do not want to work because social welfare payments are so generous. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are to have more hardship inflicted on them to spur them on to find jobs that clearly do not now exist.

This is a clear example of how totally discredited this Government is in its attacks on the living standards of low income families. Some 400,000 people are on the dole queues but this Government has no strategy for the retention and creation of jobs. The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Mary Coughlan, has allowed jobs to bleed from this economy and has stood idly by. The case of SR Technics is the classic example.

I do not suppose the Taoiseach has heeded my advice. He is now leaving the Chamber.

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