Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

We have heard it now. So the worst is over, as we have been told by the Minister for Finance. He did not say for whom the worst is over. It may well be over for the corrupt bankers and the golden circle of speculators protected by the Government. The worst is not over for the almost 500,000 people on the live register. It is not over for those people who are living through the worst every day and struggling to keep families together and buy clothes and food for them. These are people who have lost their job in the construction sector or who were involved in small businesses. The worst is not over for them.

I wonder did the Taoiseach or his Ministers speak with real people to find out what the worst really is in this State. Have they spoken to people in towns around the State, from Cork to Mayo, Dundalk to Donegal and Galway to Dublin to find out what is the worst for them? The worst is not over for those people.

Have members of the Government spoken to people in rural Ireland about how even as we speak they are preparing to head to airports with children or going to meet ferries so that their children can go overseas to find the jobs which the Government has allowed to be destroyed in this State? Have they spoken to parents who are worried about sons and daughters falling into despair and depression because of the hopelessness currently experienced? Where is the hope for them and when will the worst end for them?

The Government has told us it is too complicated to bring in a taxation system to capture those people earning more than €2,000 a week or it is too complicated to standardise tax reliefs. I meet people all the time, particularly in recent months, who are widows, who have disabilities or who have lost jobs and businesses. They wish it could be too complicated for the Government to cut their welfare income, such as the €204 per week or the Christmas bonus. Of course, that is not too complicated and it can easily be accomplished. The Government is shaking ordinary workers and the unemployed to try to get the last few cent from their pockets. It is grossly unfair. The Government is driving people into poverty and into the hands of money lenders. It is driving people to the offices of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

This budget goes against young people, who are experiencing the highest rates of unemployment in any sector. Young couples who took out mortgages and bought homes in the past few years are now suffering significant negative equity but the Government has attacked them again in this budget by cutting child benefit.

Young people have been threatened that if they do not take part in education and training, social welfare payments will be cut. Some of those young people have spent three, four or five years in education; some have master's degrees, are engineers or are otherwise well educated but there are no jobs for them. One of the reasons for this is the Government standing by without any stimulus package and allowing those jobs to haemorrhage across the State.

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