Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I am glad that has been noted.

The Minister, Deputy Lenihan's, speech must rank as one of the greatest examples of self-delusion we have ever had to listen to. Either that or he is deeply cynical. Certainly, he is trying to delude the Irish people. He told us we are "on the road to economic recovery". Who does he think he is kidding? Like a First World War general, the Minister told us the worst is over and that this is "the last big push". I was expecting him to say it will all be over by Christmas. If it is the last big push, we know who he's sending over the top – the low paid workers and their families, the social welfare recipients, the carers and the young unemployed.

The Fianna Fáil backbenchers last week staged a mock revolt over the talks with the public service unions. However, there will be no revolt when they troop through the lobbies tomorrow to support cuts to the welfare payments of the most vulnerable sections of our society. The Fianna Fáil backbenchers must surely be the greatest shower of hypocrites that ever sat on those benches. Their only hope now is to try to hang together and pray they are not plunged into an early general election, when many of them may hang separately.

The sheep will be driven willingly through the voting lobbies tomorrow. Then, at the weekend, they will go home and bleat to their constituents that they had no choice, that there was no other way, that the public purse was empty and that we all have to bear the pain. Shame on them all; shame on their followers in the Green Party. Shame on them for what they are doing to those who depend on social welfare. They have cut a swathe through social welfare benefit schemes and assistance schemes. Jobseekers allowance, farm assist, pre-retirement, supplementary welfare allowance – all cut. Widows and widowers pensions cut. Deserted wife's benefit cut. One parent family payment cut. Disablement pension and invalidity pension cut, as well as the disability allowance and blind pension.

Quite disgracefully and inexcusably this budget cuts both carer's benefit and carer's allowance. They are taking €8.20 and €8.50 respectively per week out of the pockets of people who are caring for elderly and/or disabled relatives in their homes. People on disability allowance will lose €8.30 per week. These are the facts.

The person on carer's allowance will be out of pocket by €34 per month or €408 per annum. The Carers Association has quite rightly pointed out that carers are the only social welfare recipients who have to work for their payment by providing full time care in the home to elderly, sick and disabled people.

It has been estimated that 161,000 family carers provide more than 3.7 million hours of unpaid care each week, contributing more than €2.5 billion to the Irish economy each year. The 40,883 family carers providing full-time care - more than the 39,000 nurses employed by the HSE - contribute €1.6 billion to the economy. This cut is the thanks that carers get. The Minister Deputy Lenihan claims the overriding objective of the budget has been to "strive for fairness". Fairness how are you?

Where is the fairness in the savage cuts to social welfare support for young unemployed people? This budget cuts jobseekers allowance for 20 and 21 year old new applicants from €204 to €100 per week and to €150 per week for those between 22 and 24. This is a further attack on young people who are facing the ordeal of the dole queue. It follows the April budget's slashing of jobseekers allowance for 18 and 19 year old people.

Who are these young people? These are the children who did their junior certificate between 2001 and 2007 at the height of the Celtic tiger and their leaving certificate between 2006 and 2009 as it was coming to an end. They were told they were being educated in a knowledge economy and that if they worked for the best academic results they would reap rich rewards in a State with full employment. Now, however, thanks to the disastrous policies and gross mismanagement of Fianna Fáil-led governments, they are being thrown on the unemployment scrap-heap.

In the past two years the numbers of young people unemployed under the age of 25 has soared by 173%. We have the second highest level of unemployment among 18-24 year old males in western Europe at 26.5%, more than twice the State unemployment rate of 12.5%

It is 25 years since Thatcher was on the rampage in Britain but here in the Fianna Fáil-Green budget of 2010 we find Thatcherism alive and well. The Minister tells us the purpose of his cuts to young people's dole is "to encourage them to stay close to the labour market". I am sorry the Green Deputies have left the House, because the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, the leader of the party, a few moments ago told us that it would "bring a signal of hope to our young people that they will have a future in Ireland." What future?

The Minister for Finance claims that the experience of the 1980s was that the welfare system "was out of step with labour costs in the rest of the economy" and "trapped people in protracted joblessness". That type of Thatcherite thinking was wrong then and it is wrong now. It translates as saying that we should not pay the jobless any more than the barest subsistence or they will not want to work.

The same mentality is displayed in the decision to slash the dole to €150 per week for anyone where "job offers or activation measures have been refused". What kind of job offers, what kind of activation measures? There can be many legitimate reasons a person would not take up a particular offer.

There was no real recognition in this budget of the catastrophe of unemployment. There are 423,400 people on the live register in this State, an increase of more than 146,000 in one year. There has been an increase of 63% in those applying for jobseekers allowance since December 2008 but where is the jobs strategy in this budget? There is none. There is a rag bag of mainly training measures amounting to a paltry €136 million. It is an insult.

Let us be real about this. The Government does not prioritise fighting unemployment because it represents the greedy in our society. The greedy have always secretly welcomed a high rate of unemployment because it allows them to hold workers to ransom. The message is simple: accept lower wages and poorer conditions or get out, there are plenty more out there waiting in line.

What of people who are in work? This budget attacks low and modest income families by imposing a 5% across-the-board cut in the wages of workers in the public service earning under €30,000 per year and 7.5% on earnings between €30,000 and €70,000. These public service workers, who make up the single largest bloc of public service employees, are amongst those who will be hit the hardest by this budget.

This budget crucifies those families on modest incomes. They are now bearing the brunt of pay cuts and the disgraceful cut to child benefit. A family with three children loses nearly €50 per month. Many such families have just one pay packet coming into the household and have to meet exorbitant mortgage payments out of that single income.

The cut to child benefit is an attack on children and an attack on families. Net child care costs in this State are 45% of the average wage compared to 16% -17% in EU and OECD states. Child care costs account for 30% of family income in this State as against 12.5% in EU and OECD countries. Over the past decade when people called for a real State child care strategy with proper infrastructure and places that were affordable and accessible to all who needed them, we were told that we had the most generous child benefit system and that this was how child care would be funded.

Once again it is those families bringing in wages and struggling to make ends meet who will be hit hardest. Their child benefit will be cut and if they are above the income threshold they will receive no family income supplement to compensate. It is these same families and others like them who will be hit by the increase in the threshold for the drugs payment scheme, meaning they now have to pay more every month for medicines.

To justify its cuts to pay and social welfare, the Government claims that the cost of living has gone down but this is not the case for the majority of people, especially for struggling families. This year prices went up for a range of essential items such as electricity, gas, bus fares, child care, primary education and hospital services.

In her health Estimates statement, the Minister for Health and Children claims that planned reductions in the drugs bill in 2010 will save €141 million in addition to €133 million saved this year. Such savings could and should have been made long ago and more savings can be made through reduction in price and wider use of generic drugs and the establishment of a State wholesale distributor, as Sinn Féin has long advocated. Why then does the Minister choose to target medical card holders with her prescription charge of up to €10 per month? This charge undermines the General Medical Services and the long term illness scheme. Once established it will remain in place to be increased year on year at the expense of those who rely on our public health system.

The budget has dealt a further blow to the already struggling public health system. The two-tier public private system is hugely costly in terms of inequality and the poorer health outcomes it entails and its inefficiency in using public money to subsidise the private health care industry. Privatised health care will not be affected by this budget. It will still be pampered but the public system will continue to deteriorate. The budget takes €106 million out of current expenditure in the HSE on the so-called economies and reduces capital spending by a further €37 million.

The funding for mental health is too little too late. It is typical of the mismanagement by this Government and the HSE that they have waited until the total collapse of property prices to try to sell the properties of former psychiatric institutions. We have yet to see how much this will realise and when.

With the recruitment embargo still in place, with nurses still in short supply and now going to be paid less, with trolleys and chairs still clogging our hospital corridors, with our primary care system still not properly developed and with hospital services continuing to be centralised we are in for another winter and many more winters of health care misery thanks to this Government.

One of the headings under so-called economies for the HSE is transport. In my home county people rely more than ever on HSE-provided transport since the closure of acute services in Monaghan General Hospital last July. That need will become even greater in the north east with the impending threatened closure of acute services at the Louth County Hospital in Dundalk. Yet we are told that transport is going to be cut. It is an outrage in a region which in recent weeks has seen its already totally inadequate hospital infrastructure further undermined with outbreaks of C. difficile in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda and Our Lady's Hospital, Navan, resulting in the closure of scores of beds and the cancellation of operations and procedures.

I have a question for the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Health and Children. Will every Deputy who votes for social welfare cuts get a 40-bed hospital facility in his or her constituency? Good luck to the people of Kenmare but let us remember the hospitals across the State that have been closed or have lost or will lose key acute services due to the compliance of the self-same Government backbenchers in pushing through the health policies of this Government to the cost of their respective electorates. Shame on every one of them.

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