Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I wish to share time with Deputies Lee and O'Dowd.

I was disappointed yesterday that neither the Minister for Finance nor the Taoiseach apologised to the people for the way they have left the country. They should have apologised to those on social welfare, the public service and to the people. They have never once admitted that Fianna Fáil has destroyed the country. The weak, the sick and the public service are paying for this. I am glad to see that officials from the Department of Social and Family Affairs are here tonight with the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Finneran.

The last time I spoke on a Social Welfare Bill a Minister accused me of being racist because I raised the issue of personal public service, PPS, numbers. The Department and the Minister did damn all about it because they were not fit. I am asking them again to examine and check how many people outside this country are receiving child benefit. How often have they been checked to establish whether they are still living here? There are many people receiving child benefit in other parts of Europe who do not live or work here. It is time the Department started to check up on them instead of attacking the people on farm assist who cannot live in rural areas.

Since I was a boy, I and my father before me, have heard Fianna Fáil talk about Ernest Blythe taking the shilling from the pensioners. Fianna Fáil in the present Government took €4 a week from pensioners this year by stopping the Christmas bonus. They are every bit as bad as Ernest Blythe. The Republican Party attacked the elderly and the weak by not giving them their Christmas bonus.

Tonight we are receiving text messages and e-mails about people on disability benefit. People on disability benefit have many other needs and find it difficult to live on what they receive. The €8 cutback announced yesterday is a further attack on them. The Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, and her party, the Progressive Democrats, PDs, are a part of the Government that has destroyed this country. For 20 years we heard about the wonderful PDs, how we needed them to reform society with an economy led by PD thinking. Deputy Harney has destroyed the PDs and they have destroyed the Government. The charge on prescriptions is a sick one. That will cost people on disability benefit €10 a month because they are sick and must visit the doctor and collect prescriptions regularly. This charge is wrong.

I never thought Fianna Fáil-the Republican Party, would take money from the blind and from carers. The late Seamus Brennan did an excellent job on behalf of carers as Minister for Social and Family Affairs. He must be very disappointed tonight in heaven watching Fianna Fáil-the Republican Party attacking carers who look after sick people. We do not pay them enough. They do a great job for us, keeping people at home for whom the State cannot afford beds. It cannot look after them. In every report on the subject elderly people who are sick say they want to die at home. I compliment carers for the job they do. I am disappointed that Fianna Fáil-the Republican Party would do what it did yesterday to carers. I never thought that would happen.

I have always made this point and will continue to do so, child benefit is one of the few payments that women receive into their hands. Many a woman who has come to my clinic has said that her husband has a good job and is the earner in the house but does not give her anything more than a bit of money for food. Child benefit is the money those women use to look after their children. They put the money away for school books, shoes or Santa Claus gifts. Fianna Fáil-the Republican Party took €16 from child benefit. I am disappointed in Fianna Fáil for the way they have treated people who pay PRSI contributions.

There will be more cuts from the Department of Social and Family Affairs. I am disappointed that the Government has attacked the sick, the weak and the people who most need help. I never thought that I would see the day when Fianna Fáil-the Republican Party would do this. I am not surprised by the PDs but the people spoke to them. The Green Party was wiped out in the local elections. God help it in the next general election. We will return to the old days, with Fianna Fáil holding approximately 24 seats on this side of the House and Fine Gael and the Labour Party in the majority. It will be a different Government. I am sorry that neither the Minister for Finance nor the Taoiseach apologised to the country for the state it is in.

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