John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael)

When he introduced the budget in October 2008, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, asked all here and all in the country to be patriotic and to pull together so that we would get out of the financial crisis that was looming. Subsequent revelations in FÁS and the banks suggested that people in high places were not very patriotic for a very long time. Yesterday when the same Minister stood up to introduce his budget he said we are on the road to recovery, that we have turned the corner.

Five minutes later he announced a reduction of €8.50 or €8.30 in the blind pension, the disabled allowance, the carer's allowance and a 10% reduction in children's allowance. We have turned the corner but around that corner the vulnerable, the disabled, the blind and the children are savaged in this budget. That is the reality. These are the carers who have given up their own jobs to look after their mothers and fathers in their final years and who are saving this country millions of euro. In the past 18 months the House sat until 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. on occasion to keep the banks afloat. We passed the NAMA legislation in order that the taxpayer could pay billions of euro over the odds for the developments and the developers of this country.

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