Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)

----- brought it back in again as a simple way to save a few million euro. They were not thinking about people.

We will only have memories of Garda stations after the Government has closed them. We can show pictures to our children so they can see what we used to have in rural areas.

The Minister for Education and Skills has a death wish for small schools. They are the best schools we ever had and they produce the best results. In rural Ireland, the school will keep people in an area but if it is closed they will drift to bigger areas.

Carers and home helps keep elderly people out of hospitals. The hospitals have been closed. I do not know what the Government wants us to do. It is driving us into the ground. The people who are caring for the elderly in their homes are being hit.

This budget was a well laid plan to attack rural Ireland, the weak, the lower paid and the new poor. The Government should be ashamed of itself.

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