Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

If Fianna Fáil is brave enough to go to Inchydoney again next year I am sure that Fr. Healy will be happy to address it but with a different admonition. It is with sadness that we address this House tonight in these circumstances. I bear no malice toward the people on the Government side. I have known them all since they came into this House. They are all decent people and I know that they mean well but God in Heaven I do not think they know what they are doing now. If they did they would never allow the things that are unfolding before them. They would never give their names and votes to what is falling on the heads of the people. We have listened for the last few minutes to people talk about social welfare fraud which was spread across our television screens two nights before the budget was announced. The presumption is that there is a lot of fraud.

I wonder how our economy got to this point. Was it by following due process and justice? Did it entail having due regard to rules and regulations? Was there fraud? Was this country sold down the river because of malfeasance and was any action taken against anybody? No. All of a sudden we have become politically correct and outlandish in our condemnation of what is seen as social welfare fraud. Maybe there is some. It is easy to take those people out and name them. Nobody will go to the European Court of Justice about them. They are just ordinary people. That is the sad aspect of this problem.

Within the Department of Social and Family Affairs there are already lots of swings and balances that are reported on weekly, monthly and quarterly. If they were suppressed it was not during the time of the rainbow coalition. They were active then. The then Opposition criticised it but the system was active. If there has been fraud the responsibility rests with the Government which allowed or encouraged it. The presumption that people from outside this jurisdiction have no right to obtain benefits here is wrong. The Government introduced that idea. Anybody who worked in this jurisdiction and paid contributions in recent years is entitled to gain benefits as a result, just as Irish people who have worked abroad for several years have done. People in this House should be careful about any attempt to change that.

The banking and property sectors have hijacked the economy. They have walked away with the economy. They raised the bar to such a height that nobody could reach it. They walked away and nobody says a word about it. Nobody says they were wrong.

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