Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)

Tá sé deacair a thuiscint na ciorruithe atá sa bhuiséad seo, go háirithe na hionsaithe ar dhaoine bochta agus ar dhaoine atá ag streachailt. There are few things that public representatives who seek to give leadership to their communities must always strive to avoid - they must avoid being callous, lazy or inconsiderate. The Government in this budget has shown it has forgotten these rules.

This budget is a failure. It fails the many people throughout our countryside, towns and cities who are struggling to hold their families, their communities or even just themselves together. It fails the masses of talented, motivated and proud young Irish people who see no option but emigration. It fails their parents and their friends. It fails the child who had it bad in the good times and now goes to bed without enough food in his or her stomach or enough heat in the house. It not only fails them but it says to them they do not matter, that all that matters are the numbers we can hand back to the ECB and the IMF and say: "Aren't we the best boys and girls in the class?"

One prime example of how at the stroke of a pen Labour and Fine Gael wreaked havoc is the case of Finglas Meals on Wheels, which serves 600 meals a week to the vulnerable and marginalised in our society. It has been doing so for nearly 18 years and is now expecting not to be in operation come January. Finglas Meals on Wheels has 27 community employment scheme workers among its 33 staff. A massive 66% cut in the training and materials grant means the group will lose €27,000 euro from its break-even budget. Elderly people, and people with disabilities and mental health problems, which make them unable to supply themselves with a hot meal everyday, are the casualties of this stroke of the pen from the Ministers, Deputies Noonan and Burton. Last year in the cold snap Finglas Meals on Wheels did not fail to deliver one meal. Its workers pulled together and gave their all. They fulfilled what they see as their responsibility to these people and they did so with pride. If we had such selfless dedication, the same pride in the job of helping others and a feeling of responsibility in the Government as we have in the workers of Finglas Meals on Wheels, I guarantee this State would be in much better shape.

I also wish to raise the issue of the closure of Garda stations around the State including in my own area at Whitehall as well as the almost halving of opening hours at Santry Garda station. This will be done on the back of no impact analysis whatsoever. Dublin North West is an area plagued by the parasites of organised crime who live off the social and economic disadvantage rife in many parts of it. The closure of Garda stations and reduction of service provision in these areas will do very serious damage to the great efforts by local people to protect communities and make their areas safer. It will also make the job of gardaí much harder. It is also planned to have the same opening hours reduction in neighbouring Cabra which has also suffered from organised criminality and anti-social elements. In the 1980s my home place of Finglas and other working class areas of Dublin were left to the ravages of criminals and drug dealers, and the Government seems intent on giving history the chance to repeat itself.

Sinn Féin showed in its budget plan, which the Government had plenty of time to read, that these kinds of cuts were not needed. Drugs task forces are to be cut, as will youth services and community projects, some by as much as 7%. The Government now appears to be rowing back on cuts to young people on disability benefit following the pressure that was applied, but what was it thinking about when it made this announcement in the first place?

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