Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

That is absolutely deplorable. All in all this is a shameful showing. I am delighted the Minister, Deputy Gormley, is present because the Green Party has presented itself as the saviour of the education sector. Time after time, it has said its defence of the education sector was a major part of its whole contribution to the formulation of this budget. If that is the case, what can I say about the Green Party's input into the formulation of this budget which, at the end of the day, is an attack on the education sector?

Public services are being demolished by this budget. Health cuts of €765 million in current spending in 2011 will result in bad outcomes and even the deaths of patients across the system. Over 1,500 beds in our public hospitals have already closed due to cuts and the further cuts in this budget will close hundreds, if not thousands, more beds - make no mistake. The Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Mary Harney, and the HSE have slashed services in local hospitals such as Monaghan, Dundalk, Navan, Nenagh, Letterkenny, Ennis and Sligo, and other hospitals are in their sights such as Clonmel, Roscommon and others. The budget will undoubtedly see more hospital services slashed, hospitals closed and patients facing long journeys to attend centralised and over-worked hospitals.

The recruitment ban in the health services means that trained health professionals are being educated here at great cost and to the highest standard but they cannot offer their talents to our hard-pressed public health services. The budget will give thousands more young nurses and doctors a one way ticket out of this country at huge cost and huge loss to our health services and economy. The €920 million cut from social protection, the €765 million cut from health and the €170 million cut from education combined come to 85% of the entire €2.2 billion cuts across all Departments.

We have heard Ministers quite rightly praising local authority workers and the emergency services for their excellent work during the recent harsh weather. I join with that praise in offering my thanks and that of my community not only in terms of my constituency, but those I know the length and breadth of the country, to those who are at the coal face, dealing with these difficulties. However, how many of those workers will still be in their jobs and how many of those services will be lost next winter with the budget's cut of 28% in funding for local authorities? Communities will be hit badly by that cut, as they will with the cut of 44% from the RAPID scheme, 15% from regeneration projects, a whopping 63% from the drugs task forces and €9 million from community development projects. It is some list - a litany of shame. There is a massive 36% cut to social housing. It is a recipe for community denigration and degeneration, not regeneration.

The Government has attempted to portray the tax changes in this budget as reforming and progressive. They are nothing of the sort. There is no wealth tax. There is no new higher rate for those with individual incomes of over €100,000 per annum. In Sinn Féin's economic recovery plan, "There is a Better Way", which is costed by the Department of Finance, we show that such a new top rate of 48% would raise €410 million, well in excess of the €397 million the Government is slashing from social welfare for people of working age in this budget. There were choices and choices were made - made by Fianna Fáil and the Greens. They have made the damn worst choices of all.

Instead, this budget brings more people on low income into the tax net and more people on middle income into the higher tax rate, as well as creating new inequities. The new universal social charge may prove more regressive than the current income and health levies. At present, a person earning €25,000 pays nothing on the health levy and €500 on the income levy. Under the new system in this budget, the same person earning €25,000 will pay €1,069 in the universal social charge. Those are the facts. A single person with no children, a PAYE employee in the private sector and a PRSI contributor, with a gross income of €25,000, will see a reduction in net income of 4.6%, while an individual in the same circumstances with a gross income of €175,000 will see a reduction in net income of only 3.9%. How can that be explained as equitable?

The tax increases are across the board – they fail to target those who have the ability to pay. This is a big mistake, and one that will be damaging for the economy and consumer spending. The minimum wage drops by 12% but the Taoiseach's salary drops by less than 6% - think about it. The Taoiseach will earn 13.8 times the salary of someone on the new minimum wage. I welcome the reduction in the Taoiseach's and Ministers' salaries and the €250,000 per annum cap on public sector pay, but it is too little, too late. If the Government had capped the salaries of public servants at €100,000, as we in Sinn Féin had argued, this would have saved €350 million for the State per year – nearly half of what is being cut out of the health budget alone.

The CEO of the HSE earns in excess of €300,000 a year. The heads of our semi-States earn more again. Padraig MacManus of the ESB is on over €700,000 per year. Even with the pay cut taken by the Taoiseach, Deputy Brian Cowen still earns €36,000 more than David Cameron, the Secretary General of the Department of Finance still earns more than the Permanent Secretary of the British Treasury and the CEO of An Post still earns more than the managing director of the Royal Mail. So much for those comparisons. It is interesting that it is such comparisons between the two islands that the Government relies on when it is talking about social welfare payments, but let us look at this at all the levels.

The Government will defend international bank bondholders but it will not defend its own citizens. This budget will not fix the economy. It will cause poverty and hardship and it will contract the economy further. Not one cent in tax raised in this budget nor one cent cut from public spending will be used to reduce the deficit next year. It will all go to servicing the debt incurred by the Government's disastrous banking policy. The Taoiseach yesterday tried to claim that the deficit was totally separate from the banking black hole. It was a statement without a shard of credibility.

The charade continues that we must take these harsh measures because, after years of excess, we have a burgeoning deficit. We are actually being foisted with these measures because our banks and their investors took a massive gamble and they lost. This has to be emphasised time and again - they lost. Why are we, the people, then having to bail them out? The budget is, of course, the opening salvo of a four year plan which is destined to fail because it is premised on policies of slash and burn which have already failed spectacularly. If spending cuts worked, the deficit would already be reduced. The Government talks of stimulus but it does not provide the funding for it, so its growth predictions are wildly optimistic. In addition, this four year plan ignores the growing threat to the State's very financial existence from the Government's bank policy. This policy assumes we can and should protect banks and their investors. It assumes there will be no more loan defaults on the banks' books. It is a policy that is clearly bankrupting this State and its citizens.

There is no real stimulus in this budget. Some €200 million in so-called activation measures were announced but the Government slashed the capital budget which would have created jobs. The so-called activation measures are about getting people off the dole into low-paying or, indeed, no-paying jobs. Unemployment stands at over 13% and we are facing mass emigration. The depths of misery behind these statistics cannot be exaggerated. The State is now a major owner of property - hotels, office blocks and ghost housing estates throughout the country - yet there is no statement as to how economic value might be obtained from these assets. The austerity measures in this budget, which are legion and which include the increase in VAT, taxes for those on low and middle incomes, the cuts in welfare and the planned cuts to the minimum wage, will further depress the economy and cause more jobs to be lost. Can the Government not grasp that simple fact?

Cuts to the local government budget will force cash-strapped local authorities to raise rates for businesses and service charges, hitting the public with a double whammy. This has yet to present itself. Let us be clear that there can be no recovery if jobs are not created. They must be created if we are to reduce the social welfare bill, increase the tax take, restore people's standard of living and quality of life, and grow this economy. Those are the facts of the matter.

Sinn Féin has proposed a once-off transfer of €7 billion from the National Pensions Reserve Fund for a jobs stimulus. This is equal to the investment at the beginning of this year by the State in Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland. Instead of having such a stimulus, the Government, in agreement with the IMF and the European Union, is proposing to take billions of euro from the same fund to put into the black hole that is the banking system. With the right policies and supports, jobs can be created in sectors such as the agri-food, tourism, IT and green technology sectors. We can have a new generation of entrepreneurs and revitalise the co-operatives sector.

The Government can always find additional billions for the banks but it says it cannot find money for recovery. We have shown where it can be found. This is outlined in our document. We do not claim to have a monopoly in regard to all the measures that could be taken but we have demonstrated definitely what is possible. This has been acknowledged by a variety of voices, throughout the country and internationally, who have had no truck with Sinn Féin historically.

There is no detail in the budget on the Government's plans for State assets, but we all know what is coming. The decision to sell off State assets to fund the growing bank debt is a crime. This is a classic example of the short-sighted policies that we have come to expect from the Government. In the good times, the Government sold off companies such as Eircom. Look where that got us. It resulted in a decade of poor and often non-existent broadband provision, certainly in my constituency.

State companies should be kept in State ownership. We could even ask the more profitable of these companies to front-load some of their dividends to us for the next few years to help improve the public finances. In every country where the IMF has interfered, the modus operandi has been to strip it of its assets and privatise them. The IMF is not facing much opposition from the so-called leaders of the two main Opposition parties. Fine Gael has even provided it with a blueprint in its so-called NewERA plan. Sinn Féin will resist the selling off of State assets to fund a private banking crisis and it will be calling on all those progressive forces who also oppose this policy to support it.

One issue that has seldom been mentioned in our current crisis is the massive asset lying off our west coast and currently being exploited with no benefit to the Irish people. I refer to the oil and gas reserves, which by right belong to the Irish people and which are estimated to be worth in excess of €500 billion. These were disgracefully given away to multinational corporations by corrupt Irish Governments. It is time they were reclaimed.

Náire ar an Aire. Beidh na mílte Éireannaigh, fir agus mná, ag fulaingt mar thoradh ar an bhuiséad seo. Tá slí níos fearr ann. Chuir Sinn Féin an plean sin os comhair an Rialtais ach níor éist sé. Mholamar cáin ar shaibhreas, teorainn ar ioncaim ag na ndaoine siúd ag an leibhéal is airde sa tseirbhís phoiblí, deireadh le scannal na dtuarastal ró-ard agus na gcostas ag príomhfheidhmeannaigh na gcomhlachtaí Stáit. Níor éist an Rialtas. In ionad chothrom na Féinne sa bhuiséad seo, tá an Rialtas ag cosaint na ndaoine atá ar barr arís agus ag déanamh ionsaí ar na ndaoine atá ar bun.

Cé bheidh ag íoc as an pholasaí tubaisteach chun bancanna teipthe agus an uasal-aicme a chosaint? Na daoine a bheidh thíos leis ná teaghlaigh óga, sean-daoine, na glúine daoine óga nach mbeidh an dara rogha acu ach imeacht as an tír seo. Na banaltraí, na muinteoirí, na hoibrithe sna húdaráis áitiúla, na comhraiceoirí dóiteáin - beidh siadsan thíos leis chomh maith. Mar an gcéanna, na daoine atá ag braith ar leas sóisialta, na tuismitheoirí aonair, na daoine míchumasaithe agus na daoine atá tinn.

Tá scrois déanta ag an Rialtas sa bhuiséad seo agus is cuma leis cén toradh a bheidh ann do na gnáthdaoine atá ag obair agus dóibh siúd nach bhfuil postanna acu.

Níl ciall na réasún leis an bhuiséad seo. Tá an tAire ag déanamh ciorraithe ar ioncaim na ndaoine a chaitheann an t-ioncam sin sa gheilleagar áitiúil, ag tacú le gnóthaí agus ag cruthú fostaíochta.

Níl iarracht sa bhuiséad seo chun postanna a chruthú. Má cheapann duine gur féidir linn teacht as an mheathlú seo trí chiorraithe a chur i bhfeidhm agus gan stráitéis chun postanna a chruthú tá an tAire as a mheabhair. Cuireadh ciorraithe i bhfeidhm i 2007 agus tá an meathlú níos measa anois agus tá ard-cheannas eacnamaíochta an Stáit seo díolta ag an Rialtas don IMF agus don ECB. Má tá an toil ann, is féidir postanna a chruthú. Tá sé léirithe ag Sinn Féin conas is féidir é sin a dhéanamh, ach is léir nach bhfuil an toil ag an Rialtas seo.

The Government has consistently been offered opportunities to lift this State out of crisis. Instead of taking them, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party have pushed us further into crisis. Even the most right-wing commentators in this State and internationally are questioning their slavish desire to appease the bank bondholders. The Financial Times – God bless the mark, to have to quote it of all vehicles - has questioned why the Government is so willing to sacrifice the Irish taxpayer to protect bondholders who knew exactly the sort of risk they were taking when they bought bonds in our banks. They contributed to and benefited from the bubble. Therefore, they should equally be able to accept the consequences of the bust and be responsible for them.

This banking policy is madness and the domestic finance policies pursued in this budget will ensure the economy collapses completely. We will not have a cent to deal with any of the costs the State is incurring, let alone the money to run the State. The Government, which has no mandate and which we challenged on this matter 12 months ago, knows this. That is why it has run to the IMF and European Union to negotiate one of the worst deals ever done by any Government internationally. This deal allows for a certain percentage for the banks. The rest is for all the future deficits the Government's policies will create. What a legacy the Government is leaving us. Leave us it must.

People will suffer grievously as a result of this budget; that much is clear. What is not clear is the reason the Government insisted on introducing this budget before giving up and calling a general election. It should have spared us all this spectacle and should have recognised that it has no right and mandate to do what it is doing. It is acting in contempt of the electorate and it is clear that the latter has nothing but contempt for it in return.

We can only hope that the Government will be out of office very soon. It is imperative for whoever forms the next Government, and those who sit in opposition, to ensure this deal is abandoned, to devise a banking plan that will actually work, to reverse these ideological and irrational cuts and to introduce a strategy for real growth.

I am appealing to all the voters listening to proceedings here today to base the decision on how they cast their vote on what they have heard and, more important in some cases, on what they have not heard. Sinn Féin has been honest in our proposals. We are not appealing to people's greed but their sense of what is right and fair. We cannot offer everybody something. What we can offer is honesty. We can offer them economic proposals that make sense and will fix this crisis. We can offer them a new and fairer society, and that is where we need to be arising out of all of this debacle.

In the past few weeks we have seen thousands of people brave the weather to come out and voice their opposition to this budget. I applaud those who gathered outside the gates of this institution last evening. Well done to each and every one of them. In Donegal South West, the people gave their verdict on this Government by endorsing Sinn Féin and our alternative proposals. They also rejected the so-called opposition of Fine Gael and Labour and their consensus for cuts.

The one thing we can take from this budget today is that it will hopefully act as a long overdue wake-up call to the Irish people who have had about as much as they can take. People power should never be underestimated, and it is people power that will eventually oust this Government. We are calling on every party seeking to enter government in the next Dáil to commit to reversing the decisions made in this budget. They should spell out exactly what they intend to do.

When the Irish people kick this shower out of office because of this budget and their litany of economic disasters over which they have presided or breathed oxygen into, let the people be very clear about who they are supporting in their place. No party entering power after the next election can claim a mandate to implement these cuts. Sinn Féin is committed to reversing these cuts and getting the IMF the hell out of this State.

We call on Fine Gael and Labour to commit to reversing these budget cuts and rejecting the IMF-EU sell-out deal. I appeal especially to the Labour Party to halt before rushing headlong into a coalition with Fine Gael. It is clear that the Fine Gael Party wants this savage budget passed so that it does not have to pass it itself early in the new year. Perhaps some in the Labour Party share that view but I believe that most do not. The coming general election may well be the greatest opportunity for the left in Irish politics in a generation, or it may be another case of Labour propping up Fine Gael yet again.

For our part, we in Sinn Féin are quite clear. We have rejected the consensus for cuts. We have put forward a fairer, better way to deal with the economic challenges we currently face. We are committed to producing a new banking strategy that puts bank debts back in the hands of the banks, not on the Irish taxpayers' shoulders. We are committed to protect the economically vulnerable and to require those who can afford it to contribute more.

This budget is still not a done deal. The four year plan is not a done deal, and the IMF-EU sell-out is not completed either. If there is anyone with a shred of conscience left among those who have hitherto supported this Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government, now is the time for them to act in the true national interest, a much abused term on the floor of this House in the recent past. Let those who speak of the national interest reject this Bill, reject this budget and reject this Government.

See this speech in context