Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

That was the Minister's reference and if we want to measure the patriotism of the people of this island or this State, we must recognise the reality and have some level of proportionality. The Government has betrayed the trust of the Irish people, or at the very least the people of this State who voted for it. The Government decisions in recent years and particularly over the past two years have amounted to economic treason. It watched as gangsters masquerading as bankers shovelled billions of euro out to corrupt speculators and developers to build houses where planning permission was often acquired through corrupt payments to councillors, although not all councillors are corrupt by any means. The rezoning of such land for housing purposes should not have happened. It is no wonder that there are consequences for the tolerance or encouragement of corruption by this Government.

Some context is needed as a backdrop to the clamour for cuts to the welfare and low-income families from the whole consensus for cuts brigade, which will take place in the days just before Christmas next December. The consensus parties are preparing to impoverish the poorer people of this State for decades. The Government has no mandate to do so because it and the other parties in the consensus for cuts cluster went into the 2007 election promising the people of this State tax cuts and sunshine forever more. The Government was elected on that mandate and was not elected on a mandate of impoverishing swathes of people on welfare and low or middle incomes.

The Government has no mandate, although the Minister may indicate that the Government will squeeze through on a technical aspect of democracy and how it works. The Minister knows his Government does not have a mandate. Coming up to the NAMA business last year I called for a referendum on the agency and the vast sums it would cost our people. The Government did not hold it because it knew the result that would come out. Sinn Féin put down a motion as a parliamentary device to force that referendum but there was no support, particularly from the Labour Party, and I remain disappointed in it.

There is an economic nightmare bearing down on people so this Government should immediately seek a fresh mandate before it does any more damage to the economy. We can think of the details of the consequences of what will happen after the 2011 budget. Who will pay for it? Those who will pay for it in the first instance are the people who are currently languishing in hospital accident and emergency units. People who need acute hospital beds will be staying for two or three days on a hospital trolley - or at least that is the current rate - before getting into the system. It will probably be double or triple this number by the time cutbacks are felt.

I was in an accident and emergency department with a relative approximately six weeks ago for most of the day and into the night. It was Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda. At one point there were 38 people in trolleys and when the trolleys ran out, the staff had to get chairs. The staff asked the family of the ill people if they would mind going to the public area and bringing back a chair. There were not even enough chairs to hold those people. My heart went out to the older people in particular, who are very proud and are conscious of their dignity. They had blankets across the chairs barely covering them and they slipped off the people as they dozed off. It is a nightmare scenario that is now occurring and I hope the Minister will tell us at the conclusion of the debate what the scenario will be for those people after the December budget.

I do not want to make this a health debate as other people will pay for it. Children with special needs will pay for this and already are paying because special needs assistants are being laid off. The consequences of that are that teachers in the classroom pick up the slack and bring children to the toilet and ensure that the children keep up to some degree. The other children in the classroom will suffer enormously as well. There are people with disabilities, with families already carrying substantial burdens, and others with mental health issues. They are already suffering isolation and torment, very often in Victorian buildings and grossly inadequate conditions. Those people will suffer.

When a Minister tells us the measures will be widely spread and the poor will be protected, we can see it as nonsense. These are the very people being attacked by this Government. Almost everybody, except the wealthy, must contribute in a disproportionate way. That is a scandal.

This is not about the people but the economy. It is flat and there is no prospect of growth in the immediate future. The strategy is to hang on in there and hope there will be a global bounce, with some growth here on the coat-tails of that growth. There will not be any substantial growth in this economy-----

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