Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

I am sure all those people out there today suffering and looking forward to the savage cuts will be very impressed looking in here this afternoon.

Does the Taoiseach accept that at the heart of the political establishment in this State, there is a monumental hypocrisy? When the same cuts in child benefit and in other areas that were delivered and promised yesterday were delivered last year by Fianna Fáil, they were greeted with shrieks of opposition from the main Fine Gael and Labour Party spokesmen, shrieks that would put a swarm of vuvuzelas to silence and yet they are the very people recommending them this year.

I watched the Taoiseach's so called state of the nation address and read it again and again.

See this speech in context