Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

This is the budget of a puppet Government, which is doing what it has been told to do by the IMF, the EU Commission and the European Central Bank. It is doing so in order that the State can draw down the bailout funds now that the country is insolvent. This budget is in an ironic way a fitting tribute to this failed Administration. Fianna Fáil, like the Bourbons, has learned nothing and forgotten nothing, and it is destined to continue its mistakes in this its last budget. These mistakes are easily recorded, but their consequences are tragic.

The Government's policies have wrecked the economy, destroyed the confidence of the people, put 450,000 people out of work, forced more than 100,000 of our young adults to emigrate, increased poverty and undermined any concept of social justice in our society. The Government has made three major mistakes and it continues to make them today. The two harsh budgets, which were introduced to correct the fiscal crisis, were incoherent in policy and undermined their own objectives. The Government never learned that one cannot cut and tax one's way out of a recession. One can only grow out of recession.

See this speech in context