John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)

I listened carefully to the debate. When Members on the Government benches point to the last Government and what happened, what has been forgotten is the fact that they were elected with a huge majority on a particular mandate. They are now in Government with the Labour Party but they appear to have abandoned all the plans they put forth and which won that majority of votes in the last general election. By and large, those Members have moved away from the promises they made. They broke those promises, which are regularly listed in the media and by Members on this side of the House as a reminder.

The Members conveniently approach debates such as this by hiding behind what happened in the past. They fail to debate the context of the motion before us or, indeed, some of the substantial legislative measures brought before the House. They also fail to understand that the electorate made a decision about this party. That decision was that this party would be in the House in these numbers and in Opposition. In that democratic role we must use these benches to criticise or make suggestions about the policies put forward by the Government. If the debate was approached in that light, we might make better progress in terms of making the better judgments that are required about the policies we implement that affect the lives of people throughout this country and not just in rural communities.

This motion refers particularly to rural communities because the budget and the general direction of this Government is very anti-rural. It is not as if there are no other solutions available to resolve the problems we face. The household charge, for example, will raise €160 million. The McCarthy report has pointed out that with better management of local government we could save €500 million. There are obvious and costed solutions available from previous reports which should lead the Government in a much better and more constructive way than what it is doing at present.

The same applies to the septic tank charge. This brings me to another point, which relates to fear. During the debate about the budget before it was introduced in the House all sorts of kites were flown. One could hardly see the clouds with the number of kites. They put fear into every community in this country, communities that were built up through family resource centres and through funding provided by the Government over the last 15 years. Those community organisations are delivering services to the public, the people we serve, in a cost effective manner. We are now taking away some of that funding through cuts that might not even have been announced, perhaps through HSE budgets and so forth which are affected every day. The level of service provided by those organisations will drop and rural communities and the structures within rural society will change dramatically. They will not be able to deliver to a community that is generally in distress as we speak.

I listened to Deputy Barry say that nobody on this side of the House might have created a job and that we did not understand the difficulties of small businesses and so forth. There are people on this side of the House who created employment. I understand that and the difficulties the Deputy is talking about having to face an employee and tell them one is sorry because one does not have a job for him or her any more. That is the reality of the economy we are in.

The 2% increase in VAT applied in the budget will cost every single household, family and business in the country money. As it is applied in the course of the first quarter of next year people will begin to see the hidden costs of the budget and how the Government sneakily put its hand into their pockets and took away a substantial amount of money from businesses and families. It should be ashamed of itself because of the different promises it made during the general election campaign. It should have told people the truth.

See this speech in context