Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)

I understand that I did not name the gombeen Deputies and there may be questions over who they are but the point stands. The fact is we can no longer afford this type of politics. We simply cannot afford it. We need a new type of politics.

During the course of writing the budget speech, did the Minister for Finance ever consider what it would mean to ordinary people on the street who are suffering because of what he and his Government have done? When was the last time he took a trip to a social welfare office and spoke to those dependent on the dole? When was the last time he visited a school completely made up of prefabs with more than 30 children in a classroom with only one teacher? These are the questions I would like to ask him. It is easy to talk about statistics and about people as groups but the Minister for Finance and many others in the Government are members of the political class and the elite. It does not matter to them what effects the cuts will have on the ground because they will never have to experience them. The same goes for the right-wing economists who will be cheering on these measures of austerity. The reality is that the Government and these Ministers will never see a dole queue. They will never have to choose between paying their bills or putting food on the table. They will never have to send their children to school hungry. They will never have to emigrate. What we will see is the Minister for Finance, his colleagues and the backbenches trotting down to the Dáil bar and celebrating another budget after which they will be driven home in their ministerial cars. They will take home their wages every week and when they retire or are kicked out of office, they will have a great pension to live on for the rest of their days.

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