Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)

Those listening to this debate must be very disappointed. We tabled this motion to try to stop some of the worst ravages that have been, and are being, inflicted on the community sector. Instead of having rational debate and putting forward just cause or showing empathy with the people working in that sector and those who receive the services of the sector, the parties in government have only childish abuse. It is not good enough.

I say to the Ministers and Deputies in government that three words describe everything that is wrong with what they are doing - equality of pain. The previous Government and this Government said there must be equality of pain and that everybody must share the pain. There should not be equality of pain until there is equality in the first place. In this nation, we do not have equality. We are a long way from equality. A charge was made earlier that Sinn Féin calls for services to be restored to the most vulnerable and for cutbacks to the most vulnerable in this society to be reversed but that it does not produce an alternative. That is false. Sinn Féin called for Deputies' and Ministers' salaries to be reduced dramatically. We called for an upper limit on the income of those at the senior levels of the Civil Service and public service. We called for a special tax rate for those who earn multiples of the average industrial wage, but Deputy Perry and Deputy Murphy voted against that. They must not say we did not present alternatives. We did present alternatives, but the Deputies turned them down. It was their call and their choice. They have the majority, and they did it.

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