Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

I can understand the anger and upset of the gardaí who have to take a cut in a difficult time. An equal society means that an older person, who might be scared at home at night because someone is acting in an anti-social way, can ring the gardaí at any hour and make sure they arrive. That is a basic essential service that we must keep as we manage our budget. This Government made a call to keep the services we built up when we were wealthy. That is behind the decisions in the renewed programme for Government and in this budget.

We need to be enterprising, equal and green. If we are creating a new and different republic it must be in tune with what is happening in this world. The defining issue is that we are living beyond the means of the planet to sustain life. We must act quickly and firmly to bring our country into tune with nature and live within its means. That will help us to be enterprising. There is a stimulus in our green economy. It is happening, it is real. We are going into tens of thousands of homes to help people lead warmer, healthier and more economically efficient lives.

There is real development occurring in a new digital economy here. My Department is committed to this by putting a new broadband infrastructure into schools, using new fibre optic networks, based on some of the technology coming out of our new enterprising companies. They will provide a hundredfold increase in energy efficiency and the power of communications. It is being built and designed here and we are investing in it in this budget. They are the three things we need to do and we tried to do in this budget, support enterprise, create a more equal society and turn ourselves green. It is a very broad perspective.

We are at the point of change. The first 30 or 40 years of this country were marked by the nation founders; I have seen nation builders, my parents and my generation, who built a very successful society on that foundation. We need a new nation now. We need leadership in the political system and across our country. That comes from a sense of purpose. That is what we need to start debating. We need to move on from this concentration on the budget as one of fear or cutbacks.

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