Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. From the perspective of the portfolio for which I am Sinn Féin spokesperson, I welcome the announcement by the Minister of State, Deputy Ring, that the sports capital programme will be up and running next year. I also welcome the announcement that funding will be available for the tourism initiative, The Gathering, in 2013. Those announcements aside, however, this undoubtedly will be one of the defining budgets of this difficult period in Irish history. It was a budget that promised much from a Government that did likewise.

If one casts one's mind back to this time last year, the Labour Party and Fine Gael were part of a vocal opposition that opposed Fianna Fáil at every turn. Their actions at that time were telling, particularly when they facilitated an ailing Fianna Fáil to ensure its budget passed. Fine Gael and the Labour Party, in what could only be described as political opportunism, were quite happy for Fianna Fáil to take the hit. They would not risk showing their true colours and being obliged to claim ownership of their collective strategy. That move allowed Fine Gael and the Labour Party to go to the electorate in the long-awaited general election last February and put themselves forward as some kind of alternative. It allowed them to spend the first ten months of their term blaming all their woes on Fianna Fáil. They claimed they had no choice because Fianna Fáil or the EU-IMF made it so.

However, in the most real and telling way thus far, this budget has shone a light on the true politics and policy of the Labour Party and Fine Gael in coalition. It shows what they hold dear, their principles and their priorities. Labour and Fine Gael in coalition are no different from Fianna Fáil and the Green Party in coalition or Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats in coalition or the EU and IMF in coalition. The devastating fact for ordinary families is that together, they employ the same compass that Fianna Fáil used to such good effect to steer us deeper and deeper into this crisis. In budget 2012, just as Fianna Fáil had done in the previous four budgets, Labour and Fine Gael made sure it was the most vulnerable in our society who would suffer most. Consequently, high earners remain protected as young people with a disability, carers, widows, lone parents and people, particularly elderly people, who are dependent on fuel allowance, were targeted in a clear indication of the Government's priority. It is absolutely astounding and unbelievable that any so-called Labour Party in government anywhere would stand over, propose and endorse a budget that sees a couple with three children in receipt of social welfare benefits lose more than a couple with three children earning €150,000 per year, but that is true. This is what Labour and Fine Gael have conspired to do in government. They have conspired to continue the disproportionate assault on the most vulnerable people in our society, the very people the Government is supposed to protect.

The Government had choices to make in this budget between those who have and those who have not, between those who can afford to pay and those who cannot, between the strong and the weak, the vibrant and the vulnerable. They chose the former at every opportunity. Yet again, those least able to fight their corner have been indiscriminately targeted. In the general election last February, people voted for change. This budget is more of the same. It provides no solutions for ordinary people or for the economy. Increases in stealth taxes, carbon taxes, petrol, diesel and other fuel charges, road tax, household charges and the like will have a huge impact on already struggling families.

Members can only relate the effects of this budget to their own experiences inside and outside politics. I could with absolute ease name scores of families I know personally and have dealt with over recent months and longer who will be driven further and further into hardship. They are largely a voiceless people and have been targeted repeatedly. Their quality of life will be cut in a harsh and inhumane way. They, and in some instances their children, will go that bit hungrier and that bit colder and life will be that bit harder.

By and large they will survive the effects of these cuts because people are resilient and adapt. If history has taught us anything, it has taught us that people can put up with terrible circumstances and come out the other side, but some will not be that lucky, if lucky is the right word.

All those indicators that measure quality of life will trend negatively for these people, as will all those indicators that show we are a caring people, that we care for each other and that we afford each other the right and support to get along. More people will live in, and die from, the cold. Stress, depression, anxiety and other mental illness will increase. Poverty, relative poverty and fuel poverty will increase. Suicide and alcoholism will increase but life expectancy will decrease. This budget is a blueprint for chaos in these people's lives.

Separately and in regard to yet another minority group which has been targeted in this budget, I want, as one of the few female Members of this House, to draw a particular and focused attention to the adverse effects of this budget on women. This budget was a brutally savage one on women and in particular on vulnerable women. The 35% cut to the National Women's Council, an organisation whose raison d'être is to promote women's rights and women's equality, is astonishing. It is unprecedented and is a terrible indictment on the Government's consideration for women.

In addition, the effect of the myriad of stealth charges introduced in this budget will have a real impact on mothers. With little or no employment in many parts of the country many women lucky enough to have work are completely dependent on their own transport. Increases in the price of fuel, road tax and VAT will make running a car even more expensive. It will make balancing the household budget that little bit harder. I cannot help but think of young mothers of school children in rural areas like, for example, those at Adair national school in Fermoy, County Cork whose school transport scheme was cut this year. The Government is now intent on heaping further hardship on these mothers. Heaven forbid they are lone parents or have more than two children because they will be even further disadvantaged. These women will be devastated by this callous budget.

If ever women in general and vulnerable women in particular had a reason to support and implement political reform in this State, the proposals outlined in this budget serve as ample evidence that this House still needs serious change to be in anyway reflective of the needs of women.

My party has long argued for an alternative economic strategy. We cannot afford to pay billions of taxpayer's money into redundant toxic banks on the one hand and demand even more from those same taxpayers on the other and still expect to run first world public services. The money simply is not there.

Health and social welfare, two of the most important pillars of any society, were the focus of the cuts yet again. Health budgets are being further cut. VAT increases will further compound this. When will we realise that we cannot continue to increase workloads and decrease budgets and services? The Minister can be guaranteed that we will continue, despite his best efforts, to retain pre-emergency and emergency services in the Cork area. Proposals to cut ambulance services in east and west Cork will continue to be met with resistance. Whatever the budget savings the Government has to make, they are not worth lives.

This budget will have far-reaching implications. Once again the Government has made sure that it is those least well able to take it who are asked to pay - the weak, the poor, the vulnerable, the elderly, the disabled, those living in rural Ireland and the list goes on. It is unjustifiable.

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