Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

That is not the question I asked the Taoiseach. I said that his budget yesterday was a product of an exhausted Government and that it lacked compassion, conviction and confidence. The Minister for Finance described it as being sensible, rational and equitable. I said that the Taoiseach's salary yesterday was 13 times that of a person on the minimum wage and today it is 14 times that level. Is that sensible, rational and equitable? The Taoiseach said that this is about having a situation where we will have a sustainable position going forward. Yet thousands of people today, widows, blind people, disabled people and carers are going around their houses, possibly with no heat on, looking in despair at what the Government has done when the Taoiseach did not need to do that. As was pointed out by Deputy Noonan yesterday evening, the Fine Gael alternative did not require income tax increases in 2011. It was costed by the Department of Finance and the savings that the Taoiseach could have had for the blind, the disabled, the carers and the widows - at a cost of €96 million - could have been made by a move to a single payment section, if he had any rationalisation plans for a sustainable position going forward. I will ask the Taoiseach whether he considers in his own case that this is rational, sensible and equitable? Does he consider on this morning that to have imposed these hardships on carers, widows, blind people and disabled people was sensible, rational and equitable, particularly when he did not have to do it? This was not the Brian Cowen of old.

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