Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

They never recall the things they got wrong. The human condition is fascinating. I am no different, except that I cannot remember what I got right or wrong.

Child care was the main issue in the by-election held in County Kildare prior to the 2007 general election. Fianna Fáil introduced the early child care supplement just before that general election. Governments usually know when an election is being held, although I do not think anyone knows the date of the next election. All we know is that it will be soon and, according to Senator Boyle, it will not be fought in the cold. I do not know how these conditions will be met. The introduction of the scheme was a blatant political gimmick. The Government's intention was not to offer child care, preschool education or the other child supports a civilised society should provide. It was simply a case of throwing around money in order to win an election. At the end of the day, people bought into the offer.

The last election was all about not rocking the boat. One could feel the change in the last two weeks of the election campaign. There was an undercurrent of worry because people knew in their guts that the pyramid scheme of our economy could not last. They were warned by different economists to the ones we hear from now. However, Fianna Fáil won the election because when people get nervous, they are inclined to stick with what they know. As the Government must have known by then that the economy was going downhill, the election was not fought honestly .

The consequences of the Bill before us will be felt long into the future. Every time I hear the words "financial emergency in the public interest", I am reminded of Frank Hall as the minister for hardship and the chant "in the national interest". We would not be in our present predicament had Fianna Fáil taken those words to heart but its links to a small elite caused it to follow the course of action which led the country to crisis.

I do not think anger can be sustained for long but the memory of anger will linger. A supposedly sacrosanct pension fund comprising €17 billion is now to be used to bail out bankers who lived the lives of princes and did not give a damn about the country or the little person. As the money will not be enough to fill the hole, we are now being run by outside parties. I do not blame the IMF or the ECB. We probably should be grateful they are around to clean up the mess created by this Government. The people blame the Government.

We are debating a Bill that will reduce the minimum wage by €40 per week while the people who caused this crisis are being paid €40 million in bonuses because the Government continues to make a mess of getting guarantees from the banks. Nobody would believe the Government if it announced this €40 million was to be the final payment. I am not even certain that the contracts drawn up to take over the banks are watertight. Somebody else is probably waiting to take another lump of money from the taxpayer.

People on disability benefits, the blind pension and widows are now paying for what the bankers and Fianna Fáil did to the country. While the anger may dissipate, the memory will not. I grew up listening to my mother criticise Ernest Blythe for taking a shilling from the widow's allowance. In fairness, I would not recognise the man if he walked down the steps of the Chamber because he made his decision long before I was born. However, he is still remembered. This period in our history will be remembered equally.

I ask for clarification on the extension of the grace period until February 2012. If I understand correctly, we cannot tax retrospectively the €40 billion paid out by AIB. Are we able to introduce this type of change in pensions policy even though we cannot do so in respect of a bank that we own?

How does the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Mansergh, define the word "republic"? He is the best qualified Member of the Government to answer that question. This is not a republic. We do not have equality at the heart of our society. In a republic this crisis would not have occurred and we would not be asking the poorest of the poor to pay for the mistakes of the rich.

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