Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

The full extent of the health cutbacks in this budget will become clear in time and public patients will pay dearly for them.

I spoke earlier of the Government's oft-repeated claim that we are a knowledge economy. The Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, chose not to highlight in his speech the cuts of €200 million to education in 2010. It is an outrage that 27% has been cut from the budget for building, equipping and furnishing primary schools. Children will continue to be taught in dilapidated buildings and millions will continue to be wasted in rents for so-called temporary prefabricated accommodation.

Earlier this year the Government announced a €150 million programme for installing IT equipment in schools, but only those schools which have been newly developed or renovated. This cosy deal with the IT companies leaves all other schools out of the loop. The money should have been spent on providing school buildings for those who need them most, thus putting in place essential infrastructure and helping to provide employment in the construction sector.

The Government's claim to be protecting the vulnerable as well as encouraging people to educate themselves out of disadvantage is exposed as a lie when we see the cuts to student support grants, to allowances for VTOS and Youthreach, the removal of grants from recipients of Back to Education allowance, the 11% cut in alleviation of disadvantage measures to help people access third level and the 62% cut for the same purpose from the Dormant Accounts Fund. Of course teachers pay will be cut. So much for the knowledge economy that this Government likes to speak about.

This budget has been preceded by efforts throughout the past year to divide and conquer public sector and private sector workers. It has been aided, regrettably, by Fine Gael and Labour and by large sections of the media. The acceptance by the so-called main Opposition parties of a figure of €1.3 billion for the slashing of public service pay in 2010 was a major victory for the Government. Public service workers were demonised and the stage was set for the stage-managed collapse of the negotiations with the public service unions last week. The phoney revolt of the Fianna Fáil backbenchers was the trigger for the collapse and the field was clear for the Government to impose the pay cuts obtained in yesterday Budget Statement. Yes, the highest earners have been hit and rightly so, but the across-the-board 5% cut for low and modest income earners in the public service is wrong. Those earning top rates can give a great deal more.

Make no mistake, any ordinary workers in the private sector who were misled enough to think that they will benefit from this cut to the incomes of ordinary workers in the public sector are in for a shock. If the Government gets away with this attack on low and modest income earners in the public sector then the private sector will be next for an even worse hit. The next target will be the minimum wage and wages and conditions across the public and private sectors.

While ordinary workers and families have been hit hard the wealthy have been protected once again. This is a typical Fianna Fáil outlook in terms of economic need. There was no tax reform in this budget. There should have been a new third and top rate of tax at 48% for income in excess of €100,000 which would have raised €355 million. Standardising all discretionary tax relief would have raised €1.1 billion but the Government once again turned its back on that opportunity.

The Government has tried to convince us that the wealthy are now over-taxed. In 2007 the top 5% of households in the State held €320 billion in assets. That did not all vanish into thin air with the property price collapse. In 2008 1,447 people or 0.6% of all earners, took in approximately €3.459 billion between them. Most tellingly of all, more than 25% of the top 400 earners paid tax at a rate of less than 25%. The price of not introducing a wealth tax for the few is misery for many.

There were some tax changes. The carbon tax has been brought in as a revenue raising measure that once again will hit those least able to afford it, which is why Sinn Féin voted against it last night in this Chamber. We have been threatened with water charges. The Minister announced a metering system for every household in the State but he did not say how much this will cost before a cent is raised in water charges. The cost of introducing the metres will no doubt be huge and instead of wasting this money on metering and charging for a basic necessity, the Government should spend it on improving our water infrastructure and reducing the massive waste of water in existing systems.

The 21.5% VAT rate was reduced but by not nearly enough and should never have been increased in the last April's budget. The alcohol excise measures should help restore some balance in trade along the badly hit Border towns but this should be seen as a temporary expedient only. Much more needs to be done to help revive the economy of the Border region - and I mean on both sides of the Border. The only real solution will be tax and currency harmonisation on this island as a whole.

The real background to this budget, the herd of elephants, not just a single elephant, in the room, is the €54 billion of the people's money poured into NAMA to bail out banks and developers and to put future generations in debt. The Government's claim of needing to take €4 billion out of the economy to close the deficit and show fiscal prudence is a total contradiction when set against the €54 billion wasted on NAMA. Those young people not forced to emigrate by this Government will have to bear the burden of NAMA for years to come. NAMA and this budget, and further budgets ahead of us, are the legacy of the golden circle of conservative politicians, corrupt bankers and insatiable developers who have wrecked the Irish economy and it is the most vulnerable who are now once again being forced to pay.

The Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan and the Taoiseach have tried to put a positive spin on this disgraceful budget. Unbelievably, the Minister invoked the community spirit of the people who rallied to the aid of those hit most by the recent catastrophic flooding. He has some neck, given the lack of urgency in the Government response to the flooding, the inadequate funding made available to deal with the aftermath, and above all, the fact that Government neglect left people across the country vulnerable to this flooding in the first place.

Also invoked by the Minister was the ancestry of the Kennedy family in County Wexford. This was appropriate but not in the way the Minister intended. His budget and his Government's policies are a recipe for the mass emigration of unemployed Irish youth. Last year he charged them €10 per head to leave the country when he introduced that charge for all those leaving our shores by air. This year he is making sure that Ireland is a cold house for jobless young people and that the door is wide open for them to get out.

There was and is an alternative to this disastrous budget. Sinn Féin presented that alternative in our pre-budget submission, The Road to Recovery. Central to that alternative is the provision of stimulus to the economy so that recovery can come about in the only way possible, through the provision of jobs. It is as simple as that. The provision of jobs through sustainable employment. We proposed a €3.218 billion economic stimulus package with a range of measures to get Ireland back to work. We proposed measures and savings amounting to €7.623 billion which would have protected those on low and modest incomes, social welfare recipients and public services. In contrast this anti-jobs budget will depress the Irish economy and worsen our economic woes. Our proposals are not for resting on a shelf. They are campaigning proposals and we will continue to advance them in the months ahead. We welcome the fact that people are fighting back against the disastrous policies of this Fianna Fáil and Green Party Government. People have been on the streets in the past year in unprecedented numbers in demonstrations, strikes and other forms of protest.

We need economic policies founded on fairness and with the ability to succeed in providing a decent livelihood and decent public services for all. Such policies also need to instil confidence. Sinn Féin is confident that the Irish people can emerge from this economic crisis and that we can build a fairer society and sustainable economy. Those are our goals, not only in respect of this State and this economy but for the economy of the island of Ireland as a single economic and political entity. To do that we must reject the policies on which this budget is based and get rid of the politically bankrupt Government which produced it. We demand a better, fairer way. We say to this Government, get out of office and give this country back its dignity, its right to work and its guarantee of fair opportunity for all who have been born on our shores.

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