Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)

I am proud and humbled to be here as a Sinn Féin Deputy, elected by the people of Laois-Offaly. I am the first Sinn Féin Deputy from the constituency since Séan McGuinness was elected in 1923. I thank all those who worked on my election campaign and the electorate of Laois-Offaly who placed their trust in me to represent them. When I stood for election I stood on a platform of change, of bringing politics back to the grassroots, of standing with those people who had been abandoned by the political establishment. I will stay true to that platform and will use my experience as a community activist and councillor to represent those people who elected me to the best of my ability.

The programme for Government is extremely vague and lacking in important detail. The people have put their faith in the Fine Gael-Labour Government to deliver for them but they have fallen short at the first hurdle. The programme is patchy and vague at best and at times like this, patchiness is not adequate - people deserve real answers. Unemployment is rocketing, public services are crumbling and many people have reached crisis point. We all met them on the canvas. We need a Government that will act and, at best, it has offered some fuzzy aspirational solutions; at worst, it has offered more public sector cuts. The Government cannot take 25,000 out of the public service without causing huge damage. In my constituency of Laois-Offaly, it will cause massive damage. We will have more redundancies and the selling off of valuable State assets. The Government is well on the road to becoming a coalition for cuts.

We have been promised political reform but the reality is that there cannot be any reform simply by changing the faces around the table. Real reform starts with radical new policies. I have read the programme for Government and there is nothing radical in it and nothing new in the Fine Gael and Labour policies. In fact, they offer nothing different from that offered by the previous Fianna Fáil Government.

Politicians need to work for the people and not for the elite. The cosy relationship between politicians, bankers and developers, unfortunately, is still alive. There is the scandal of ghost and unfinished estates which are plain to see throughout the State. In my constituency of Laois-Offaly there are estates such as Glenall in Borris-in-Ossry where only six out of 91 houses have been finished and occupied. The six families have no proper sewerage system and cannot get the deeds of the houses they bought some years ago. At the same time there are thousands of people on housing waiting lists in constituencies such as Laois-Offaly. It is simply not acceptable that these houses are lying empty. What is equally unacceptable-----

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