Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)

How does the reduction in grants to insulate houses help employment? It is the only remaining opportunity for the few people left in the building industry.

The issue of mental health supposedly was the good news story of the budget, in that the promise of €35 million was met. I am delighted by this but one should consider the causes of mental illness and depression. One major cause is environmental factors or in other words, the world in which a person lives. In addition, there are genetic reasons. However, with this budget the Government has just increased the environmental dangers of increasing mental health problems to a phenomenal extent. Despair is abroad as a result of the budget. The previous Taoiseach, Tánaiste and the others who now are retired had their pensions cut by less than some of those in receipt of social welfare. How the hell can the Government agree with that?

I got a letter from a lady today who wanted to say the following to the Members opposite and she asked me if I would pass on her message. She said she would like to raise the issue on behalf of lone parents who also have children with special needs and disabilities. She said the cut in the lone parent's allowance and the age of her kids means it will affect her in a really bad way. She also said that since she is a lone parent of a child with autism, she already has to fight to retain the special needs assistant for the school and everything else that goes hand in hand with raising a child with a disability living in rural Ireland. She wrote that she had to give up work in September as her son was sick and she cannot afford to pay someone €21 an hour so she cannot go to work. She wrote that her parents are in their seventies and her mum helps her out but she cannot do so for much longer because she is getting older and she is no longer able to help her. She also wrote: "What, Luke 'Ming' Flanagan, are you going to do for me on this one?"

All I can do is appeal to and beg the Members opposite not to hit the poorest in this society. It will not help anyone. The Government says the rich will leave the country if it taxes them more. The rich are far more likely to leave this country if the Government goes down the road it is going down because it will not be safe for its members to leave their houses because society will fall apart and, as a result, this country will go to hell. Do not let this happen.

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